Ward Melville HS on modified lockdown after bomb threat

Students and faculty at Ward Melville High School in East Setauket returned to their classrooms Thursday morning without incident after being evacuated a day earlier because of a bomb threat, officials said.

Suffolk County police responded shortly before 2 p.m. Wednesday to the threat, which was scrawled on the wall of a second-floor boys bathroom, a spokeswoman for the Three Village Central School District said.

The school was evacuated and after a police search, the building was "deemed safe to reoccupy," interim superintendent Donald Webster said in a statement.

Students were dismissed early on Wednesday as police conducted their search. When they returned Thursday morning, the school was on "modified lockdown," Webster said in the statement, meaning people can only enter the school through designated doors and everyone entering is subject to a search.

"The school will be in a modified lockdown for the rest of the week," Deirdre Gilligan, a spokeswoman for the school district, said Thursday.