One Week Later: Lessons from Albertville Bank Robbery for Schools and Parents

Last Wednesday, parents received the disturbing automatic, or “robo-call” alerting them to an incident within the community that caused the district’s schools to go on lockdown in secure mode.

The district enacts this form of lockdown when there is a threat outside the building or a non-threatening circumstance when people need to be kept away from areas. 

Most agree that the district performed admirably under a constantly changing situation as they worked with authorities to ensure student safety. But the good truth of the matter is that this type of occurrence is rare in our community, and both parents and school staff can learn from such experiences.

Here’s what the district wants you to know about what happened, what you can do if and when another challenge arises.

On and amongst one another, many parents reported feeling panicked at the district’s initial robo-call, alerting parents to an ambiguously titled ‘incident in the community’ that was requiring a district-wide school lockdown. Though the message clearly stated that harm was not directed at the schools directly, many parents’ minds-this one included-jumped to all kinds of worst-case scenario conclusions about what the incident could be.

“I think the initial communication that came out from the school was very confusing, and left a lot of parents asking questions like, ‘When are we going to find out?’ Or, ‘When are we going to find something else out?’ ”said parent Kim Hanauska.

According to St. Michael-Albertville School Superintendent Dr. Jim Behle, the district was communicating everything they could share as quickly as possible.

“The district is only able to release the information permitted by law enforcement,” he said. “The goal of the message was to assure parents that children are safe, the incident was not school related, and that school release would be delayed. [But] we will be debriefing with law enforcement and determine if the message can be different and if so how,” Behle said.

Once the initial message was delivered, it was no surprise that parents would be calling in for more information or even driving to the schools. Behle said he understands the natural reaction to call the school, and said they will do their best to keep up with them. But, since the phones became overloaded, many could not get through.

In the future, he said information would be put up on the district website as soon as possible for parents to access.

(Editor’s Note: Since St. Michael-Albertville news is our first and only priority, we at St. Michael Patch would also humbly recommend heading here for more information as well- as many of you did that Wednesday afternoon.)

When it came to actually heading over to the schools, however, Behle asked parents to fight that urge and avoid doing so.

“While it is difficult to do, parents should not go to the schools,” he said. “We do not release parents in secure mode or lockdown so they will need to wait. They will also not be able to enter the building. It can also create traffic problems and pull law enforcement away from the actual emergency.”

Once the schools were officially cleared to release students, they were all set to hop on the buses and go home … or were they? The first transportation-related robo-call said the buses would be running fairly on time, then another call came in saying they would be 35-40 minutes behind schedule.

This uncertainty was confusing for all families waiting for their kids, but especially for the many open-enrolled students who are bussed to a stop within the school district, but not to their actual homes-something they will do for open-enrolled students if space allows.

Hanauska is one of the many parents who drives to her daughter’s bus stop every day in time for the bus. If she’s not there, her daughter will be standing alone on the side of the road.

“I know it was an isolated incident and out of the norm, and I think they were trying to respond as best as they could to parents,” she said. “But I just felt like it was a learning curve for them, too. How did it go from being on time to being 40 minutes late? And was that 40 minutes late from the time they should have been here or from now? That part I felt was frustrating.”

“I know that we have good administrators in place and people that really care about our students,” Hanauska added, saying that the schools did a great job of keeping the students very calm and not giving them any reason to worry about the change in routine.

Behle said they have received many calls and emails commending the district on its actions last Wednesday, though he said they will be listening to feedback and debriefing with law enforcement to see what the could have done differently. Specifically, he noted they would be looking at communication procedures, any changes in how students are released, the use of signage on doors, and if they need any additional procedures or clarifications for schools.

“The feedback I received was that parents were very understanding, pleased we took the incident seriously and kept their children safe,” he said. “Overall, parents responded well to this situation.”