Theodore Roosevelt High School evacuated students around 10 a.m. Friday morning after an apparent bomb threat. Students were evacuated to the old Franklin Elementary School shortly after the initial lockdown was initiated.

One Roosevelt teacher, who didn’t wish to be named, said this was the first time a full evacuation has been done at the school.

Parents and school buses were lined up in the parking lot of the elementary school to pick up the students and take them home.

“I received a reverse 9-1-1 call a little after 10 (a.m.),” Richard Phile said. “It said there was a general bomb threat and the school was on lockdown.”

Phile was picking up his son, a junior at Roosevelt.

“They called three times,” Phile said.

The second call told the parents where to pick up the students.

Tom Buchki and Sue Vaughn are bus drivers for the Kent school system. They both received a phone call from their dispatcher to gather in the elementary school parking lot. Vaughn was shopping at WalMart when she got the call.

“I just left my cart at the back of the store and ran out,” Vaughn said. “(The dispatcher) told me there was a bomb threat and I had to be here.”

Buchki received the same call, requesting “all hands on deck.”

“Within five minutes we were all here,” Buchki said.

Kent police are not releasing any details on the bomb threat.

Contact Karl Schneider at [email protected]