COLUMBUS, Ohio — Dominion Middle School was placed on lockdown for more than an hour as police responded to a report of a suspicious person inside the building Wednesday morning.
In an email sent to families, principal Dorothy Flanagan said a staff member saw what they believed was an unidentified male inside the building.
The district’s safety and security staff members and the Columbus Division of Police responded and the school was placed on lockdown. During the lockdown, students were kept inside their classrooms and access to inside the building was limited.
A student was later identified as the individual in an unauthorized area of the building. The lockdown was lifted just before 9 a.m.
Before the email was sent out, parents showed up at the school and expressed frustration about how they weren’t told what was going on at the time. The email was sent to parents just after 9:30 a.m., about an half hour after the lockdown was lifted.
Parents told 10TV that they first found out about the lockdown as students were texting them.
"Any kind of appropriate communication directly to the parents would’ve been the best thing to do, instead of waiting for someone to put it on Facebook," said Jenny Brantingham.
A spokesperson with Columbus City Schools issued a statement in response to communication during the lockdown, saying a notification was sent once the district knew what was going on.
"We did not want to alert parents before we had proper confirmed information," the statement read.