Norwich — Speaking to parents Wednesday night about the 70-minute lockdown at Norwich Free Academy on Monday, Dec. 6, Head of School Brian Kelly acknowledged, "The email that I sent Tuesday morning should've been sent Monday afternoon, period."

A juvenile was charged in connection with the lockdown, when two fake guns were found on school property and a plastic-tipped bullet was found in a student's backpack. Adding to the confusion was an incident earlier that Monday on a bus, in which a student overheard what Kelly described as a "potentially concerning conversation." The incident was unrelated and Kelly said the conversation was "eventually determined to be harmless."

NFA held a forum Wednesday night to discuss school safety and behavioral issues, in which Kelly gave a presentation and then opened mics in Slater Auditorium to parents, saying he was "happy to take questions, concerns, advice (and) constructive criticism." About 30 parents attended and nine spoke.

"I wish we didn't have to have these kinds of meetings. I wish this wasn't the world we lived in," Kelly said. He added of the events on Dec. 6, "This is our reality. I'm not going to tell you you shouldn't have been scared or shouldn't have been concerned."

Kelly said one thing that won't change is lack of communication about threats amid an active lockdown. He said school officials need to be 100% sure about the facts before communicating them, noting officials were "relatively sure" the school bus and gun incidents weren't connected but "relatively sure isn't good enough." And in potentially serious situations, administrators all need to be focused on the event at hand.

"I'm not willing to put kids' safety at risk, even if that means prolonging an already uncomfortable situation," Kelly said. He also doesn't want to send a message to the person who is a potential threat, and he doesn't want to give teachers the sense that things are OK when maybe they're not.

"This stinks," Kelly said. "It really pains me to know that kids have that anxiety."

One parent said her child didn't take the lockdown seriously because lockdowns are being normalized, and she'd rather have kids be nervous than not take it seriously.

Kelly did say NFA can't keep parents in the dark after a lockdown, and releasing only a "bland, general statement" is a mistake he'll own, because that doesn't work when kids are texting their parents.

"If we're not responding in a proper way and a clear way, then we're letting someone else dictate the narrative, and I'm no longer going to do that," he said. He also encouraged parents to be mindful of their own social media in addition to their kids' social media, passionately saying that it's inexcusable for an adult to go on Facebook during a lockdown and say — falsely — that shots were fired.

Kelly said the school lost some internal communication capabilities because of the power outage in September. He said the school immediately ordered parts but they're delayed amid supply chain issues, though he expects to have them next week.

He said a difficult question after a lockdown is deciding whether to dismiss students. If they aren't dismissed, "we need to have a debrief and or a cooldown period, so kids understand what happened," he said.

Michelle Doyle, who has a sophomore at NFA and is a teacher herself, said teachers are taught to have a debrief in every class to make sure they reach every student. She said while Kelly might have known there wasn't an active shooter last Monday, students didn't know that.

She told The Day after the forum that "mental health was not addressed immediately after the situation," which she called a "big loss and a big hole." Asked if the forum made her more confident this would change in the future, she said she didn't know.

Kelly said there will be enhanced training for staff on Monday, and the school has contracted with someone who is an expert in trauma, suicide prevention and school safety. There will also be a parent component Monday night on Zoom.

He also said that starting next week, more support will be assigned specifically for ninth grade, where the school is seeing a lot of issues.

"It's not in the budget, but you know what? We need it," Kelly said.

Another change is that streets will probably be closed during any lockdown in the future, so parents can't get to campus. Kelly said hundreds of parents coming to campus puts a burden on police and distracts them from neutralizing a threat.

Norwich police Lt. Thomas Lazzaro was present Wednesday and acknowledged, "There was a lot of miscommunication. At first, I didn't even know there were two separate incidents."

One parent raised concerns about students in a photography class, saying they were outside with photography passes and didn't know there was a lockdown. Kelly said NFA is reviewing several other schools' policies on how to handle students who are outside during such an incident.

Another parent spoke of a teacher mishandling the stay-put order that was issued last Thursday due to a medical issue, and Kelly said he would follow up on that. Kelly previously had explained that unlike a lockdown, there's no imminent danger during a stay-put order and teachers can continue teaching; an example he gave was trying to locate a student who was lost last year.

The last parent who spoke said she wanted to end on a positive note, and thanked the school for having a meeting and putting out the facts.

e.moser@theday.com