Students at Martin Murphy Middle School spent more than an hour
outside the school on the playing fields Monday morning while San
Jose Police officers and school officials combed the campus for a
bomb.
Students at Martin Murphy Middle School spent more than an hour outside the school on the playing fields Monday morning while San Jose Police officers and school officials combed the campus for a bomb.
The decision to evacuate the school was made at 9:34 a.m., just 13 minutes after the call came in at 9:21 a.m., SJPD Public Information Officer Steve Dixon said Monday afternoon,
Students were released back to their normal schedule at 10:42 after no bomb was found. They were told later in the day by Martin Murphy Principal Rhoda Wolfskehl the reason for the evacuation.
Martin Murphy and Los Paseos Elementary are located in the northernmost corner of the Morgan Hill School District, on Avenida Espana and Avenida Grande in south San Jose.
“A custodian found the written threat,” Dixon said. “There was some damage to vending machines at the school over the weekend, and this (the threat) may have been written at the same time.”
Wolfskehl said one vending machine at Martin Murphy and a few at next-door neighbor Los Paseos Elementary were damaged. Dixon said SJPD officers have responded to four bomb threats in three weeks at San Jose area schools. Wolfskehl said the police department liaison for the school told her there had been a rash of similar vandalism at schools in the area over the past few weeks.
Wolfskehl sent a letter home with students explaining the event, and Los Pasos Principal Joanne Yinger also sent a letter to parents. The response of the SJPD was quick and impressive, Wolfskehl said.
“You couldn’t believe how quickly they came,” she said. “We had 11 or 12 officers here so fast you wouldn’t believe it.”
The officers set up a command center on the campus, and Wolfskehl and her assistant accompanied officers on an inspection of the campus “to see if we noticed anything out of place,” she said. Other officers helped teachers keep an eye on students.
“The students behaved wonderfully,” Wolfskehl said. “The officers even commented on their cooperation. You could really tell that they had been through pre-rehearsals and drills.”
Murphy seventh grade student Nick Hagiperos said students initially were told the incident was a fire drill.
“We just went out of the classrooms, like we normally do for drills, not thinking this was anything special,” he said Monday afternoon. “Some people thought it was good to miss a class and were just kind-of goofing around outside … When they told us later, with an announcement on the intercom what it really was, it was like, as long as we’re alive, it didn’t seem so bad.”
Another seventh grader, Joey Edgar, said he was a bit surprised when students were told it was a fire drill.
“Most people just got up and walked out of the classroom, but it kinda struck me because we sometimes know in advance, and it’s usually during third period,” he said. “Earlier in the day, at the beginning of school, we saw that someone had ripped two holes in one of the Coke machines, and I thought it had to be linked in some way.”
Joey said he thought Wolfskehl had “made a very good decision” not to initially tell the students there was a bomb threat.
“If she had, everyone might have gone nuts,” he said.”
Although he said he was very glad “nothing happened,” Joey said this might have been a good lesson for Murphy students.
“We are a good honor code school,” he said. “If there was some kind of award, I think we would get best procedures, best honor code. Mrs. Wolfskehl really practices us on these things and makes sure we’re all up to speed. What happened today just shows you have to always be on task because you never know if it might be the real thing.”
Joey said the students he talked to don’t think making a false threat or vandalizing the school is cool.
“These kids are probably starving for attention,” he said. “Maybe they weren’t good in school, they could have been but they didn’t commit themselves. They don’t care about themselves or others or what they are going to do in the future.”
Wolfskehl also said the teachers handled the whole situation very well, and she was grateful for their support, as well as the support of the district.
“I received immediate support from the superintendent (Carolyn McKennan) and the assistant superintendent (Denise Tate), and Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini came over and stayed throughout the incident,” she said. “Burnett Principal Bob Davis also came, and of course Joanne (Yinger, Los Paseos principal) and I were in constant contact.”
Officers determined it was not necessary to evacuate Los Paseos.
Wolfskehl said Monday afternoon that though she was disturbed that someone would create the hoax, and was very thankful that it was only a hoax, she was trying to view it in a positive light.
“It was a learning experience for us,” she said. “The teachers were great. We were able to see that the drills were productive and to learn that there are some other things we could do to improve.”
