Officials evacuated an Evanston middle school for three hours Thursday after someone called in a bomb threat, authorities said.
Someone calling himself “God” warned Chute Middle School just before 11 a.m. about an explosive planted in the building, 1400 Oakton St., said Evanston Police Department Cmdr. Tom Guenther.
“It sounded like he was a younger male,” Guenther said.
Chute administrators called EPD and evacuated the school. More than 500 students went to Dawes and Oakton elementary schools for lunch.
Meanwhile, a canine team from the Cook County bomb squad searched the building along with police.
“We take all threats seriously,” Guenther said. “We err on the side of caution.”
The bomb squad found nothing suspicious, said Lisa Gordon, spokeswoman for the Cook County Sheriff’s Police.
At 1:45 p.m., police gave school officials an all-clear and students returned shortly after.
Chute has previously practiced evacuating its students to Dawes and Oakton as part of its crisis plan, said Pat Markham, communications director for Evanston/Skokie School District 65. The practice paid off Thursday, she said.
“We did everything necessary to make sure the building was safe for students and staff to return to,” Markham said.
District 65 officials posted an announcement about the scare soon after evacuating Chute. On the Eighth Ward message board, two parents expressed concern that the school district did not notify parents by phone of the incident.
One of the parents, Candace Hill, said she found out about the scare when her eighth grade daughter called her after being evacuated from Chute. In a phone interview, Hill said her main concern was keeping her daughter calm.
“I wasn’t worried for a minute,” Hill said. “Anybody can call in a bomb threat to any school.”
Chute PTA President Ellen Schwarzbach, the parent of a sixth grader, said she was not concerned that the school did not call parents.
“I was fine with how things were handled,” she said. “They did what they needed to do to keep the kids safe.”
The school district updated its Web site after getting the all-clear. It also issued a press release later Thursday afternoon describing the incident.
This was probably the first non-drill evacuation of an Evanston middle school in a year and a half, Markham said. In October 2007, Haven Middle School was evacuated after a student brought a fake hand grenade to school as part of a Halloween costume.
