A school-wide lockdown was placed at approximately 1:25 p.m due to a bomb threat. The district is working with authorities to ensure all students and staff are safe. The Leander Police Department asks all parents to park in the tennis court parking lot. According to one of our reporters, parents have to fill out a form in order to pick up their students.
Information send on ParentSquare:
Parent Pickup:
For families picking up students, the reunification point will be located near the baseball fields on the west side of campus, accessible via Kettering Drive off Lakeline Boulevard. Please note that Bagdad Road remains closed between Osage Drive and New Hope Drive.
Bus Riders:
Students who normally ride the bus will be dismissed to their regularly assigned buses. Please note that buses will depart once the student release process is underway, and delays are expected due to the coordinated evacuation and traffic restrictions in the area.
Walkers:
We are currently working with law enforcement to define a clear and safe path for students who normally walk home. Additional instructions will be provided as soon as that information is confirmed.
Student Drivers:
Because the area of campus where some student vehicles are parked — on the east side near the front of the school — remains part of the active investigation, students will not be released to access those vehicles at this time. Staff members will stay with all students who remain on campus after the evacuation to the tennis courts, ensuring their safety and supervision until they can be reunited with a parent or transported home by other means.
For students who parked on the west side, we are still working with law enforcement to define the dismissal process.
Due to the lockdown, some after school activities have been canceled.
TIMELINE
1:25 p.m. Lockdown announced
1:46 p.m. Leander HS sends a voicemail alerting staff of the bomb threat
2:01 p.m. Leander Police Department posts about it the lockdown
Around 2:10 p.m., Assistant Principal Dessard Norris announced to stay in the classroom, or to go to the hallway
2:15 p.m. Leander HS sent an Insider
2:53 p.m. Norris announced overhead to get in a classroom
3:20 p.m. Norris sent an email out to staff. “We are safe.”
3:45 p.m. Law enforcement deemed it safe to start a controlled evacuation of the school.
4:01 p.m. KVUE goes live
4:22 p.m. Norris announces there is still an active lockdown going on, and students cannot leave unless they have been cleared by police officers.
5:28 p.m. The last group of students were released from the school and transported to the tennis courts.
5:31 p.m. Students walking home were released through the front road of the school.
5:55 p.m. All students were released to go home.
FROM THE STUDENTS
“I was caught off guard, taking a nap and neglecting doing my school work,” senior Connor Nagel said. “I really just want to go home.”
“When the lockdown first started I was a little bit freaked out because [no one knew what] was going on,” junior Olivia Long said. “Then I mostly felt annoyed because [my classmates]were talking loud. Now that I know it’s not a shooter and just a bomb threat I just wanna leave because I honestly don’t understand why this is taking so long.”
“I want to go home,” junior Violet Brewer said. “It is really boring and we’ve been here for two hours. It was scary for a couple minutes in the beginning, and then we just kind of started cracking jokes the whole time because we live in Texas and the U.S.. We’re just so used to it. It’s pretty sad.”
“I wish I had my phone now,” junior Nataly Nguyen said. “It had to be put up because of the Texas phone ban and I do not agree with that for situations exactly like this. It prevents me from getting in touch with my friends who are also in this situation.”
“It’s chill and it’s kind of sad that it’s chill,” junior Thienn Peterson said. “We’ve had almost as many shootings as we have had days in the year in America. It’s kind of normal and it shouldn’t be.”
A • Jan 9, 2026 at 6:57 pm
This time stamp is twisted up. I got released past 6 PM because the cops and staff wouldn’t let me leave when I asked to walk to my mom’s car because she was stuck in the same spot for 3 hours. Did they care? No.
mckenna • Jan 9, 2026 at 3:41 pm
i knew that this wasn’t a drill because the district only emailed about a fire drill and not a lock down.