On Thursday, each East Helena school was swept by law enforcement out of precaution following the discovery of a suspicious device around a block away from Helena High. In situations like this, East Helena superintendent Dan Rispens says it’s better to be overly safe than sorry. “We just wanna make sure that we err on the side of caution when it comes to taking safety precautions.”After hearing about the incident near Helena High from a school resource officer, Rispens connected with Helena schools, and had SRO’s, helped by East Helena police, conduct full sweeps of each East Helena school, ensuring everyone’s safety. However, since the high school students are allowed to leave campus during their lunch, they were made aware of the event that students planned to attend the protest in Helena. And he noted that East Helena schools are locked all the time with high security measures in place, maintaining safety as the top priority.