FARMINGTON — Police and school officials met on Monday to share information on possible leads in the investigation into the bomb threat that cleared Mt. Blue High School Friday afternoon.

“We are narrowing it down,” said Dr. Michael Cormier, superintendent of the Mt. Blue Regional School District.

Friday’s threat was the third made at Mt. Blue this school year. The criminal charge is terrorizing, a felony, and also can include the misdemeanor of making a false public alarm. The penalty could also include suspension and expulsion from school.

Two weeks ago a 16-year-old girl was disciplined by school officials after making one of the earlier threats, Cormier said, but no students were expelled or charged by police.

Farmington Police Chief Jack Peck said they were still keeping a watchful eye on the school.

“We will keep on being vigilant and we are taking this kind of activity seriously,” Peck said Monday.

He said Gilbert, Detective Marc Bowering, and school officials, are following up on leads and conducting interviews. Anyone with information can call Farmington police at 778-6311 or Gilbert at Mt. Blue High School at 778-3561.

Neither Peck nor Cormier had an estimate of the cost of Friday’s threat.

Monday’s meeting with police and school administrators was also used to review and tweak the district’s emergency evacuation plan that went into action as soon as the threat was received, Cormier said.

No information was available Monday on how the threat was made.

The current policy relocates students to area schools rather than releases them. That option has been supported by the students themselves after a series of bomb threats hit the school several years ago, Cormier said.

“The kids said they didn’t want to be sent home. They told us they wanted to stay,” he said.

The 11 a.m. threat evacuated students and bused them to Academy Hill School in Wilton, Mt. Blue Middle School in Farmington and the Foster Technology Center Annex on High Street. Once there, they were fed lunch, received some instruction, and waited until they could be bused home or back to their home schools.

At Foster Tech, the challenge was heightened since students come from four regional high schools. Buses from “sending schools” in Rangeley, Jay/Livermore Falls, and Mt. Abram normally bring students back to their home campuses after lunch and in time for a fourth period class, said Foster Tech Director Glen Kapiloff.

That couldn’t happen Friday because of the timing.

“This was very disruptive because it meant these kids would be getting back too late,” he said.

Food was sent over from area cafeterias. Kapiloff said that to feed dislocated students now waiting at the Annex, culinary arts program director Sean Minear enlisted his class to whip up pizzas in what had been their former kitchen/classroom.

The new state-of-the-art culinary classroom opened last month on the main campus but the temporary kitchen at the Annex has not yet been dismantled.

Mt. Blue/Foster Tech is undergoing a $65 million renovation and expansion and the bomb threat also delayed construction on Friday. Some crews were sent home; other returned once the campus was cleared.

“It is not just the education system that is disrupted. Contractors lose money, workers can lose pay, and the job is delayed,” Cormier said.

One of the many disruptions involved student cars. The school was cleared by about 2 p.m. by the Maine State Police with the help of the police department and Farmington Fire Department and students were allowed to return for their vehicles.

But many children were already on buses taking them home or back to their sending schools, said Kapiloff.

That meant kids from out of town had to leave their cars in the parking lot until they could arrange for a ride back to Farmington.

Students also had left backpacks, homework, books, and laptops and had to make arrangements to pick them up or leave them until Monday.

“When you evacuate a building, you have to leave your stuff,” he said.

Comier said if students are sent home, the time has to be made up on a non-school day.

“But for it to count, the state requires that more than 50 percent of the student body have to attend that day. If less show up, it doesn’t count,” he said.

“We did that once when we had a rash of threats — also in December — and no one liked it,” he said.

Busing children home in the middle of the day is unpopular all around.

“We have a lot of parents who don’t want their children home unsupervised,” Cormier said.

If parents want to pickup their children up by private vehicle, there are also restrictions.

“We will release a child only to a parent or an adult listed on the emergency contact card. We need to know where the children are,” he said.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story contained incorrect information regarding student discipline. The information was incorrectly provided to the Sun Journal.