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HUNTINGTON TWP. — The Northwest Area Primary Center went into a “lock out” for a short while Wednesday afternoon following a report of an unidentified person walking in the woods behind the building.

School District Operations Manager Betsy Ellis said the move was strictly precautionary. Any students that were outside were brought in and further entry stopped. “We don’t let anybody in, Ellis said. We don’t lock the classrooms or anything like that.

Ellis said she searched the area along with the principal and the transportation director, and found nothing, so the lock out was lifted. “We searched well over half a mile of the perimeter,” she said.

As an added precaution, students who went outside after the lockout were “restricted to an area very close to the school.”

Ellis noted the school, with about 300 students in kindergarten through third grade, is in a very rural area and that “there is a hunting cabin back in the woods. ” She speculated someone may simply have been out for a walk in what was a particularly warm autumn day.

The district posted a “status message” on its website at 1:18 p.m. advising residents of the incident

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By Mark Guydish

[email protected]

Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish