A lunchtime conversation among students at Pahrump Valley High School led to a veritable lockdown of the campus along with a heavy response from Nye County Sheriff’s Office deputies on Monday, March 11.
According to the school district’s communications officer, Robert Williams, the incident began at approximately 11:15 a.m., when an individual overheard several students talking about and organizing a fight that was to take place at the school later in the day.
That same individual,Williams said, also heard mention of a gun.
It’s unclear whether the reporting individual was a student or a faculty member.
Gossip among students
“The person reported that information, which prompted the school administration to put the school on lockdown and call the sheriff’s department,” Williams told the Pahrump Valley Times. “The sheriff’s department then collected all of the students believed to be involved. They searched the school as well as the students and any anybody else who was on the periphery for a weapon, but no weapon was found and no fight ever took place.”
Getting the word out
Williams also spoke about the district’s means of reporting the incident to parents, as rumors about the situation were swirling online at the time.
“We sent a message through email and text message to all parents and guardians, which stated that the students were safe but the school was locked down,” he said. “We wanted to make clear to parents that the students were safe. It was limited information that I had to get out to parents at the time. All of our other updates went through the website and Facebook to keep parents updated. I also posted a summary of the incident.”
Meanwhile, Nye County Sheriff Joe McGill told the Pahrump Valley Times that multiple area agencies were also summoned to the scene, including the Nevada Highway Patrol, NCSO auxiliary units, along with the fire department and Nye County Juvenile Probation officers.
Maintaining a safe distance
“We also shut down the roads in the immediate area during the lockdown of the school,” according to McGill. “We were however able to identify the individuals who were involved in the initial conversation. Those individuals were identified and located in the school. They were detained and searched but no weapons were found. As a result, we released the lockdown at approximately 1:30 p.m.”
Enhancing communication efforts
Further, Williams noted that Monday’s incident prompted school district officials to enact changes to the methods parents are informed when and if a lockdown is needed.
“I posted on our website and Facebook some of the improvements that we’re going to make to our communication structure based on this particular incident,” he said. “It would be nice if parents were on the lookout for that. There were all kinds of rumors on Facebook with regard to somebody claiming that a student got stabbed and then a gun went off, but none of that actually happened.”
Campus ‘dead zones’
An additional issue Williams addressed was the concern of students and parents’ ability to communicate during such situations.
“We have dead zones in the buildings that affect cell phone service, so one of the concerns that has been expressed is that kids can’t make phone calls or text their parents from inside the building,” he said. “We we don’t block cell signals because that’s actually illegal. We also can’t retrofit the entire building to allow for cell signals. I spoke with a parent and they were wondering why kids weren’t allowed on the Wi-Fi. We have teacher and student devices and phones, including Chromebooks and smartwatches which are all on our Wi-Fi, and it breaks the network — it’s not because we don’t want students to access the internet, it’s because we can’t handle when all those devices are actually connected.”
No injuries were reported as a result of the two-plus-hour lockdown.
Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @pvtimes