Parents of students and students and faculty at the Warren Central Junior High are breathing easier this morning after a harried day on Wednesday.

During early afternoon, students were jostled from their classrooms and quickly but methodically evacuated to nearby Vicksburg Junior High after officials at the school received a threat of a potential danger to the students.

The school district officials immediately went into the district’s detailed plan for such an event. Vicksburg Police swooped in quickly, arriving just minutes after learning about the threat.

It’s all very scary for those involved.

Police officials did indeed find what they suspected to be a homemade improvised explosive device, and called in experts from the Clinton Police Department bomb squad to handle it. Later, police said its investigation showed the device, had it detonated in the school, would have caused only minor or no damage.

Nonetheless, the junior high-aged student who allegedly brought the device to school faces serious felony charges. What awaits him is a long legal row to hoe, which will no doubt disrupt his life and his family’s for year’s to come. And that’s such a shame.

However, kudos are due to the student who had the courage to recognize a potential danger and alert school officials to it. The device could have posed a real threat to the lives of those in the building. That student’s concern for others could have saved lives.

Congratulations, too, to law enforcement and school officials, whose good planning and execution of that plan brought a swift resolution and protected students and faculty.

We certainly hope our community doesn’t face anything similar in the future, but it’s good to know our schools and law enforcements are working together and are prepared to handle threats.