SHAWANO, WI (WTAQ) – Shawano School District continues to investigate a small fire that started in a boys bathroom at Hillcrest Primary School, Tuesday morning.
District Administration is also addressing a misstep in communication about that incident.
According to Superintendent Gary Cumberland, a piece of toilet paper was started on fire in the boy’s bathroom and quickly filled the room with smoke. The school was evacuated right away and students were kept outside until they got too cold and were moved to a nearby business.
The District made a post about smoke and the evacuation on the District’s Facebook page, but parents were not directly notified by email, text or phone until almost an hour after the incident took place.
Cumberland says that was in an error in communication between himself and Hillcrest Principal Troy Edwards.
“I thought one was doing it, he thought I was doing it. In the heat of the moment, I just thought it was done. The thought process was well Troy is taking care of that and I will take care of the District communication.”
He says all parents in the District get notified by phone and email but he wanted to make sure he had all the facts before the district, and those not directly involved with Hillcrest School were notified.
Cumberland says he later learned that Edwards was actually involved in evacuating the building and putting out the fire after it started.
“Troy Edwards actually helped extinguish the fire,” Cumberland said. “He came out of that bathroom full of soot and his white shirt was gray.”
It was learned that two of the toilet paper dispensers caught on fire and one melted off the wall and was just a glob of plastic when it was discovered. He said that is how the smoke got to be so much of a factor.
Cumberland added that there was nothing wrong with how Edwards prioritized his actions because the safety of students and staff is the top priority. He said normally, it is his responsibility to send out district-wide notifications and school principals would send out notifications regarding incidents at their schools along with any updates.
He says they are looking into clearing up that procedure for future events, but says looking back, he would have done things differently himself.
“In retrospect, I should have focused in on what was happening there, get that message out to those parents right away and then deal with everyone else. “
The district decided to cancel classes for the rest of the day and invited parents to pick the students up in the early afternoon. Cumberland said they were worried about sending the morning students home early because parents may not have childcare arrangements worked out at a moments notice.
The administration decided to move the students to the other Elementary school nearby and allow for parents to pick kids up there. Cumberland said most of the parents picked up kids at Hillcrest before that, and only 40 kids were bussed to the other school.
Along with communication, District Administration also found an issue with security equipment.
Cumberland said they are also looking into possibly adjusting their surveillance camera placements because currently, they are mostly focused on entrances of the building.
“The way we have cameras set up, we don’t have a very good look at who is coming in and out of that bathroom.”
He says that would have been helpful in this case, but they are learning all they can from students and staff to see if they can find who started the fire.
“We want to make sure that we find who this person is because we can’t have things like this happen.”
Cumberland said somethings did go as planned. The school just had a fire drill the day before so students and staff knew exactly what to do and the fact that everyone ended up safe is a win for the District.
