School officials are blaming a faulty relay switch at Freedom High School for setting off the school’s fire alarm.
Students and staff were evacuated around 11:20 p.m. Thursday but were back in their classrooms after about 20 minutes, said Principal Dr. Ken Prichard
Morganton Department of Public Safety was called to the school after the fire alarms went off.
Fire crews checked the building and gave the all-clear after about 20 minutes.
Prichard said a faulty relay switch is to blame for the alarm.
He said the school took advantage of the situation and held a fire drill.
The evacuation followed an incident Feb. 10 in which Prichard said he chose to cancel a pep rally scheduled for before the home basketball game against Patton High School.
Prichard said an unknown person created a social network page, posted a photo of a person in a hood and mask and made “vague and general” comments on the site.
The site said the person’s identity would be revealed once the site received a certain number of “friend requests.”
Prichard said students started “speculating” about the site and called their parents.
Some of the parents “panicked,” Prichard said and picked up their children from school early Feb. 10.
Prichard said he involved the school resource officer, and he looked into the matter but didn’t have enough information to start an investigation.
Prichard said no specific threats were ever made.
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