Other Sandy Hook Schools Field Calls Meant for Conn. School
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DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Sandy Hook Elementary School in Kentucky and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Virginia both received calls of concern and condolence intended for the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 students and six faculty members last Friday.
“On Friday, we did get several calls from people who heard the story and thought it was our school, or accidentally reached us instead of the school in Connecticut,” C. Thomas Potter, the superintendent of Elliott County Schools in Kentucky, told ABC News.
The calls included “one call to a member of the school board before we all heard the news that scared her half to death,” Potter said.
Officials at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Virginia told ABC News affiliate TV3-Winchester that even law enforcement was confused on Friday.
“When I first heard it, I actually heard it over local radio, and they didn’t say Connecticut,” a Sandy Hook school resource officer told TV-3 Winchester. “I didn’t understand why I hadn’t been contacted, because I was just across the street at the middle school, so I came right over.”
The Virginia school wasn’t the one at the center of the worst elementary school shooting in U.S. history, but principal Melissa Foltz told TV3-Winchester the school has received messages of support from around the country.
“Phone calls came in from across the nation. They talked about receiving calls from Michigan. We received phone calls from Legoland in California asking if we needed financial help and what they could do to help us,” Foltz told TV3-Winchester.
Now that everything has calmed down at the Sandy Hooks in Virginia and Kentucky, school officials said the focus is on the Connecticut community and how they heal and move forward.
“Our connection with the name of the school has really struck a chord with our students and community,” Potter told ABC News. “Our students all wore green and white on Monday for the Sandy Hook students [in Connecticut].”
Foltz told TV3-Winchester her school has stepped up patrols this week to keep the students safe, and on Wednesday a man was arrested for walking into the school with a wooden board labeled “High Powered Rifle.”
Funerals for the students and faculty killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., are underway this week.
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