Lt. Chip Chubb of the Duxbury Police Department said officers responded to the Alden School after school on Friday to investigate a threat written on a boys’ bathroom sink.  Chubb said that the threat "wasn’t exactly descriptive," but did refer to something happening at the school on Monday.

Officers were stationed at the school on Monday and there were no incidents reported.

Also on Monday, a letter was sent home with students at Alden and Chandler describing the event and what steps school officials had taken.

The letter, written by Alden Principal Susan Skeiber, said that the police deemed the situation a low risk incident and that over the weekend, the school’s Crisis Team, PTA leadership, a representative from the police and from Duxbury High School met to discuss the best measures for the Monday school day.

"I think it was wonderful of those parents who did to join us on Saturday to give us guidance," said Superintendent Eileen Williams on Monday, noting that the group met for a couple of hours to discuss what to do next.

The letter went on to say that Monday began with another meeting of the Crisis Team as well as a faculty meeting before class instruction began.   After all students were in the building, all doors were locked as they normally are, and police were present throughout the day.

Skeiber and Assistant Principal Christopher Trombly met with students on the floor where the writing was found to discuss the incident while classroom teachers on other floors discussed the incident with their students.

"The message that was given to the students was that someone had made a mess on a sink and floor in the boys’ room and that words that might make people uncomfortable were also written there," said Skeiber’s letter to parents.  "The students were reminded that for Alden to continue to be a wonderful place to got to school they needed, as members of our family, to help us solve this problem."

Williams said Monday that the school department was handling the issue in a developmentally appropriate way for students given their age.  She added that this event might have been precipitated by the news of threats at the high school.

"I think obviously there’s an atmosphere in the community," she said.  "We’ve been talking about the threats at the high school and younger kids may have heard about them or read about them in the paper and get thoughts about these things.  We need to treat every situation seriously, but it is clear that this has been treated differently for the age level of these students."

Williams added that as in all of these incidents, she and school officials are urging parents to talk to their children and offer any information they can.  Skeiber’s note did say that the school had collected information and was hopeful to solve the issue in "a productive manner for all concerned."  She added that updates would be available to parents as information becomes available.