WAPPINGERS SCHOOL DISTRICT-Students at Roy C. Ketcham High School were evacuated April 23 after the school received a threat that there was a bomb in the building.

According to principal Sherrill Murray-Lazarus, the threat came in the form of a note that was discovered at 9:03 on the morning of the 23rd. Lazarus, who was attending a meeting at district headquarters a few miles away, was notified within five minutes and Superintendent of Schools Richard Powell was apprised of the situation shortly thereafter.

By 9:25, Ketcham's 2000 students and 400 faculty and staff were evacuated from the building and ushered to an undisclosed location as part of the school's safety plan.

Lazarus said the State Police were summoned and they responded with two bomb-sniffing dogs and their handlers and "took control of the scene."

As students and staff remained away from the school, the handlers, dogs, another Trooper, and a Ketcham administrator made a sweep of the building, which took approximately one hour.

"They checked out the entire school and it was clean," said WCSD Director of Administration Support Tom Stella. "They found nothing out of the ordinary."

Students returned to class by 10:43 that morning and the remainder of the day passed without incident.

The threat came three days after the 10th anniversary of the shootings that left 15 people, including the teen-age gunmen, dead at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

Stella said last week's incident at Ketcham went smoothly largely because everyone followed the school safety plan.

"We did what we were supposed to do," Stella said, "and the students are safe and the staff is safe and that's the important thing."