A false alarm from a new emergency badge at Meadowlane Intermediate School sent West Melbourne police rushing to campus Tuesday afternoon, but two neighboring schools were never told, and Brevard Public Schools is now apologizing to families.
According to West Melbourne Police, officers received an alert during school dismissal indicating a potential emergency at Meadowlane Intermediate on Wingate Boulevard. Due to the nature of the alert, multiple officers responded in emergency mode.
Police determined the alert had been activated accidentally and there was no threat to students, staff, or the surrounding community. Meadowlane Intermediate was placed on a brief lockdown lasting about 10 minutes.
In a letter sent Wednesday to families at Meadowlane Primary and Central Middle School, Superintendent Dr. Mark Rendell said the incident was caused by one of the district’s new emergency response wearable badges being accidentally activated.
Rendell wrote that the incident uncovered “a serious concern in the system.” The new alert system did not link neighboring campuses together as intended, which delayed notification to staff at Meadowlane Primary and Central Middle.
By the time those two schools learned Meadowlane Intermediate had gone into lockdown, they had also been told the alert was a false activation and the situation was resolved.
“If the schools had received the notification as intended, both schools would have paused and gone into a shelter in place,” Rendell wrote.
The superintendent said families should have been notified by the district and apologized for the communication gap. He said district teams took immediate steps Wednesday morning, and emergency alerts will now be shared among Meadowlane Primary, Meadowlane Intermediate, and Central Middle so all three neighboring campuses receive timely information and follow consistent procedures.
Rendell said the district is using the incident to strengthen the new safety technology as it continues rolling it out districtwide.
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