Communications High School was on high alert Monday, May 8 after an unidentified woman tried to enter the building during school hours, triggering a lockdown.

“I was in the bathroom and I walked out and everyone was running inside,” said senior Delia Mullen of Wall.

The lockdown lasted about 10 minutes until members of the Wall Police Department led the woman off campus. No students or faculty were harmed and the woman did not enter the building.

Senior Joey Esposito of Tinton Falls was playing outside with his Research Paper classmates during fourth period when he spotted a woman on the softball field adjacent to CHS.

“I thought it was a student,” Esposito said. “[A classmate] threw a frisbee and realized it was an adult woman, just squatting on first base.”

“She seemed distressed,” he added. “She sat on one of the benches right in front of our school, talking to herself.”

Esposito alerted film teacher David Salowe, who teaches the Research Paper class, of the woman’s presence. As he was doing so, the woman spotted a plane flying overhead and waved at it.

Salowe and gym teacher Ginny Clevenger spoke with the woman, who said she had been kidnapped and had called the police. The teachers advised the woman to meet the police in the parking lot by going around the school; the woman insisted on going into the building, through the school, to meet the police.

They remained at this impasse until the woman made a beeline for the door leading into the cafeteria.

“She grabbed the door like Mr. Salowe was chasing her,” Esposito said.

Salowe and Clevenger, along with gym teacher Jennifer Baldaccini, guided the woman away from the door and around the school, toward the Wall High School parking lot where officers of the Wall Township Police Department met her. Despite multiple phone calls and subsequent voicemail messages, Wall Township Police Department Public Information Officer Capt. Chad Clark could not be reached for comment.

“Salowe positioned himself between her and the school, so I ran into the school because all I was thinking was ‘I gotta tell the main office,’” Baldaccini said. “Survival instinct kicked in, almost.”

After Baldaccini signaled the main office, an unusually flustered principal James Gleason rushed to the public address system and called a lockdown.  Radio teacher Bill Bengle hustled the students into the school as Baldaccini, Clevenger and Salowe dealt with the woman.

“All the teachers, without being prompted, had a role in helping the students and helping the school,” Gleason said. “I think they did a great job, considering the circumstances.”

In an email to students and parents, Gleason wrote that the Wall Police Department “responded immediately” and “determined there was no safety threat” before releasing the lockdown order. Students and teachers were still shaken up, however.

“It was scary because you never know if she has a weapon or what she’s gonna do,” Salowe said. “It was more reaction than thinking.

Though today’s troubled climate has prompted many a lockdown at schools nationwide, there has never been one at CHS in its 23-year history.

“We’ve had individuals in our parking lot, just because they’re lost or whatever, but nothing like this,” Gleason said. “We’ve never had somebody attempt to get into the school before.”