At two Nixa Schools, High Pointe and Espy Elementary, there were bomb threats that forced evacuations. These bomb threats happened on Sept. 18 and 19 and they are believed to have come from overseas using a Kansas City man’s IP address.
“High Pointe Elementary has been safely evacuated as we investigate a bomb threat. Reunification is at Summit,” the Nixa Police Department said on Facebook.
Bethany Adler, a parent and physical therapist for the district, travels to and from four different buildings within the district.
“I heard about the bomb threat because I got a staff text first,” Adler said.
She initially read the text incorrectly and thought it was at the high school rather than at High Pointe. She did not realize until another staff member pointed out that the threat was actually happening at Bethany’s child’s school. That’s when it hit close to home for Adler.
“I was like ‘OK’ and it snapped me out of it, and then I came over here. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get into High Pointe, but I work here too. I parked in this parking lot and I saw everybody coming over. And then I came into Summit,” Adler said.
Josiah Daugherty, a school police officer for the Nixa school district, was also deeply affected by this terrifying threat.
“I have a child who goes to High Pointe. However, the best thing that I could do for my kid at that time was to do my job,” Daugherty said. “ I was very focused on making sure that I did my job well and then during that, I could kind of glance over and see that my kid is okay.”
Parents and staff members both dealt with concerns for the safety of their children or children in their care during this uncertain time.
“It can be difficult, because as a parent, with a critical incident like that, I feel like it is more after the fact. You lay down that night and stuff starts going through your head,” Daugherty said.
Both parents/staff members had confidence in the school district and the local law enforcement agency, but both of them agreed that there was little room for improvement in how this difficult situation was handled.
“Not that they didn’t already have protocols in place but they just knew how to tweak them after this happened,” Adler said. “And I appreciated that not only as a staff member but as a parent. I do think they probably will change some things here on out. It gave me even more confidence when situations happen, hopefully never again, but when they do. We now know how to handle this even better than before.”
Daugherty’s thoughts echoed Adler’s in the same way.
“There are always things to improve on, but I came away from that situation really impressed,” Daugherty said. “I felt like a lot of the things that were going through my head, seemed to be going through administrators’ heads at the same time. So we were able to work very well together because of that. It was good.”
