CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Westwood Hills Elementary School in Waynesboro was evacuated by police Wednesday morning, according to a release from the Augusta County Sheriff’s Department. The release said there is an “active law enforcement response,” and said law enforcement and school officials were working to “safely resolve the situation.”

“Law enforcement personnel are actively working the scene and conducting a thorough clearance of the school,” a release from Sheriff Donald Smith said. “The reunification process, through which students will be released to their parents or authorized guardians, will begin as soon as it is safe and logistically possible.”

Smith asked people to avoid the area.

The first scanner dispatches came in around 9:30 a.m., reporting a possible shooting. Augusta deputies responded with a SWAT team alongside State and Waynesboro Police. By 10:15 a.m., Smith had announced the situation was contained and secure, and that “the children were safe and being evacuated from the school.”

Smith also told families to wait for notification from Waynesboro Public Schools and to not go to the school itself, as access was needed for buses and emergency vehicles.

A Virginia State Police spokesperson told Cville Right Now that the Augusta Sheriff’s Office was the lead agency on the scene.

Roughly half-an-hour later, Smith said in another update all students, teachers and staff had been safely evacuated to a designated staging area with law enforcement, and the reunification process would begin once it was “safe and logistically possible.”