BETHEL – Principal Ted Davis has installed a metal detector at SAD 44’s Telstar Regional Middle/High School following a series of bomb threats that were found by staff.

It marks the second time in eight years that Davis has introduced the detector to combat a wave of threats and ensure an added level of security for students and staff.

Since Tuesday, roughly 550 high school and middle school students and staff have entered and exited through the detector, Davis said Wednesday.

Adult volunteers also scan backpacks and bags using a metal-detecting wand.

“It’s obviously an inconvenience, but the kids understand why,” Davis said. “The kids have been very cooperative and everything has gone smoothly. It’s been received very well by students and staff.”

Additionally, 25 to 30 parent volunteers are stationed throughout the complex at points of entry, monitoring foot traffic into and out of the two adjoined schools.

On Monday, for the third time in a week, the complex was evacuated due to a bomb threat – a hand-scrawled message on a high school boys’ restroom wall.

Other threats were made May 6 and 11. Those messages were found in a high school boys’ restroom and a middle school boys’ restroom.

Each time, Bethel and state police and bomb-sniffing dogs searched the complex for three to four hours without finding an explosive device.

Davis said the security measures will be further heightened by the end of this week when a uniformed Bethel reserve officer will be stationed inside the complex.

“Now, the kids feel safe,” he said. He didn’t know how long the security measures would last or if students would be required to make up classes lost to the disruptions.

Davis was the high school principal from 1983 through 2000, when he retired.

But when Principal Shawn Lambert left to take a job in another district this school year, Davis returned until the district could hire another principal.

After a wave of bomb threats in 1999 disrupted school severely, then-Superintendent Kent Rosberg authorized Davis over Thanksgiving weekend to buy and install a metal detector at Telstar, Davis said. After a student was caught and prosecuted for the 1999 threats, the district removed the device and had rented it out to several schools over the years.