LIVERMORE FALLS — Trained bomb-detecting dogs did a sweep through the Livermore Falls High School on Tuesday but found no explosives, police Chief Ernest Steward Jr. said.

Police were called to the school at about 8:45 a.m. after a student found a bomb threat written on a note in a second-floor girls’ bathroom, he said.

School officials evacuated the building, moving high school students to the nearby middle school gymnasium.

Steward and officer Vernon Stevens secured the interior of the building while Livermore Falls firefighters secured the exterior, Steward said.

Two Maine State Police Troopers and trained dogs searched the building and checking classrooms and halls and passed by lockers to see if explosives were present, he said.

Stevens is continuing to investigate the incident.

Police turned the building back to school officials at about 11:30 a.m., he said.

RSU 36 Superintendent Sue Pratt said the school staff followed evacuation protocol.

“I felt that the procedures worked as planned and that although we will debrief the incident, our plan worked as it needed to,” Pratt said. “The unfortunate concern with such action is that it costs many folks time and expense to do the correct process. These funds could be better spent in a much more productive way in the educational system. The cost is not just a school expense because it costs all the emergency personnel to perform their task in the process involved to keep all children safe.”

It is the second bomb threat Livermore Falls police and firefighters have responded to in town within a week. A bomb threat was called into Rite Aid last Wednesday, Sept. 22. It forced the evacuation of the store for a couple of hours while the building was searched. No bomb was found and no arrests have been made.

Stevens is investigating that case, too.

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