On Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, over 2,000 Cherry Hill High School East students and staff were evacuated to Cherry Hill High School West due to a bomb threat against the school. Eastside acknowledges that this situation was concerning and difficult for all involved and commends the administration for doing their best to ensure student safety was guaranteed through their procedures. However, Eastside recognizes that there were some key issues that arose during the evacuation that the Cherry Hill High School East Administration and the Cherry Hill Police Department must address together to craft future policy and procedures that will benefit East students in an incident like this one.

Eastside believes that the first major issue in this instance was the lack of communication between the administration, students, and staff. Throughout the emergency, several instances of miscommunication occurred. Some examples include where the buses were going initially, whether or not parents could pick up students who were not their children, and whether seniors with half-day privileges could leave for work. Eastside believes that the implementation of text messaging or platforms such as Remind for students, teachers, and parents to help keep everyone informed would prevent miscommunication in the future.

Additionally, Eastside believes the protocol in the event of a bomb threat should be altered to further ensure student safety. When students were transported, there was no security to verify that no student had a weapon with them. Furthermore, the attendance of students was not recorded, resulting in the possibility of students not being accounted for after the evacuation was complete. In order to avoid these issues in the event of this happening again, the Cherry Hill High School East Administration and the Cherry Hill Police Department must develop a plan to keep a record of students and keep them safe.

Eastside understands the gravity of the threat that occurred on Tuesday and it is true that there often is a “learning curve” to situations like this. However, there is no room for error when it comes to student safety. Therefore, Eastside believes that it is imperative that the Cherry Hill High School East Administration and the Cherry Hill Police Department revise the internal threat protocol to both guarantee the safety of students and staff, as well as to improve communication between the administration and staff, students, and parents. Moving forward, Eastside believes that the Cherry Hill East Administration and the Cherry Hill Police Department should prioritize safety and transparency to make these frightening occurrences more manageable for the administration, parents, staff, and students.