You are assuming that the Patch is correct in its assumption as to why we were in lockdown. I would rather wait to hear what happened before jumping to conclusions based on the patch jumpi9ng to conclusions.

As a parent of a child in the Hillsborough school system, I am curious as to why the decision to have a modified lockdown was made. I do feel that I have a right to know as a party with a vested interest. When someone notifies me that the doors are locked at a school that my child is attending and my child can not leave nor parents can enter the school, that concerns me. It's not a matter of policing the town.

Part 1: "students were not allowed to leave the building, the alert said." - I believed that statement. I read it on Patch and other media posts, I heard it on a recorded message that was on calls made to parents in the district, I read it in a text on my phone, and I read it in an email message from the school district - so I didn't think I had to call the schools get more detail. To me, when someone says students were not allowed to leave the building, I thought that's exactly what that meant. Perhaps a clarification should have been made. I know that students were not allowed outside for recess, for example. That's not a big deal to me. Better safe than sorry, for whatever the reason. But not allowed to leave the building, to me, means exactly that.

Perhaps different school districts have different definitions of what modified lockdown means. This is all new to me. Growing up I never had lockdown drills. From Wikipedia: "A partial lockdown means that the doors leading outside of the building are locked and people may not exit or enter the building. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockdown

However, even if parents were allowed to pick up their children from the schools, a call was made to have a modified lockdown.

Parents who subscribe to the Hillsborough Schools twitter feed received this message initially:

Modified Lockdown: As a precautionary measure, all schools are currently on a modified lockdown. Classes are running as usual within the buildings. This action was taken as a precaution due to an incident occurring in another county. There is no active threat at this time, classes are running as usual, students are safe as all buildings have been secured. Thank you for your patience as we continue to wait for further information from the Hillsborough Police Department. You will be notified via Instant Alert when the modified lockdown is over. -District Name: Hillsborough Township Schools -Sent By: Katherine Shaughnessy

Monday 26 March 2012, 11:42 via twittermail.com

"This action was taken as a precaution due to an incident occurring in another county" - That statement seems to insinuate that the Hackettstown incident was the reason why the district decided to make the modified lockdown decision. My question still remains, why did Hillsborough make that decision, but yet other nearby schools in Bridgewater or Montgomery did not. I think it caused a lot of parents to semi-panic today because more detail was not given.

Laura - Reading the news reports it appears this incident started around 9:30am in Hackettstown. The time stamp on the text message I got from Hillsborough was 12:38pm. I wonder why we locked down so much later?

I will say, however, at the EOD better safe than sorry.