Counseling event set at Mount Vernon high school

Mount Vernon High School will host counseling Tuesday evening, the day after a male student was evacuated from the school due to a medical emergency.

According to the high school's website, counselors will be available from 5 to 7 p.m. in the cafeteria for students and family “to help cope with the medical emergency situation.”

The school went on lockdown for more than two hours as the unidentified student was taken away from the school in a medical helicopter. School and law enforcement officials would not confirm the identity of the student involved or his current status.

The lockdown began at 11:50 a.m., but parent Susie Belding said she did not learn about it until she received a call from her daughter's cell phone at 1 p.m. Shortly after, she and her husband received phone calls from the school district.

Belding, who also is the president of the Mustang Booster Club at the high school, said she was satisfied with the district's handling of the lockdown.

“They needed to take care of the important things first which was the safety of the students. That was more important than getting parents notified,” she said.

Parent Kelli Curtis-Chapman lives within sight of the high school, so she immediately knew something was wrong when emergency personnel began arriving at the school in police cars and firetrucks. She found out about the lockdown through a phone call from her daughter, but the wait for the school to inform parents of the situation was almost unbearable.

“It's frustrating as a parent not knowing that your child was safe. And my child didn't know what was going on either, which didn't help,” she said.

Curtis-Chapman said parents received an e-mail Tuesday morning saying the school followed its official lockdown procedure, but she was still concerned about the way things were handled.

“I understand that they were trying to deal with the situation at hand, but when you're a parent all you care about is knowing your child is safe,” she said.