UPDATE 4 p.m. All schools have been cleared.
UPDATE 3:20 p.m. via CUSD—With the exception of San Juan Hills High School and San Clemente High School, all schools that were in shelter in place have been cleared for release. Students will be dismissed from the school sites. Students who would normally take the bus home from school will continue to be transported by bus to their designated bus stops.
- Ambuehl Elementary: Students in Ms. Tatarian and Ms. Sullivan’s classes who are returning from the field trip will be taken to Saddleback Church in Rancho Capistrano at 29251 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Parents should arrange pick-up of students at this location.
By Jim Shilander
Students at San Clemente High School and other schools across the city and southern portions of Capistrano Unified School District were locked down Wednesday afternoon after a bomb threat mentioning SCHS was phoned into the sheriff’s office.
Lt. Jeff Hallock, Public Information Officer for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, said the threat was called in at approximately 1:30 p.m. to the sheriff’s department. The only school mentioned in the call was San Clemente High School.
As of approximately 2:30 p.m. the department’s Hazardous Device Squad, including bomb-sniffing dogs, was on campus searching for a device. Hallock said there was no reason to consider the threat credible, but that the department was taking the threat seriously.
As a precautionary measure, Capistrano Unified School District officials also issued a shelter in place order for other area schools in San Clemente, Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano while school officials performed visual inspections. Parents at Dana Hills High School had been informed that the lockdown had been lifted at their school as of 2:45 p.m.
According to the Capistrano Unified School District’s website, all middle school, high schools, and some elementary schools (RH Dana, Concordia, Palisades, Las Palmas, Vista Del Mar, Del Obispo, San Juan, Ambuehl, Kinoshita and Lobo) in San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano were included in the shelter in place.
Updates on what is going on at area schools can be found at www.capousd.org.
Andrea Swayne and Allison Jarrell contributed to this report.
