MONROE — A 21-year-old township resident was fired from her substitute teaching post at the Remsterville Learning Center on Prospect Plains Road after police arrested and charged her with causing a false public alarm.
Nicole Caruso, 21, was arrested Jan. 25, after police detectives charged that she was the author of a note claiming a bomb was inside the nursery school, police said. Leads from the private school’s administrative staff led police to Caruso.
"It turned out to be a prank," Monroe Police Detective Jason Grosser said about the evacuation, which took place Jan. 23 in the early afternoon.
Police responded to the learning center with a trained K-9 from the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office, Grosser said. The dog, trained in ferreting out explosive materials, was unable to locate a bomb. Monroe Township does not have a K-9 unit and typically relies on local agencies, such as the sheriff’s department in Monmouth County for use of these specially trained dogs.
According to school owner Dr. Roy Sippel, Caruso had initially claimed she found the note in a flowerpot outside the school’s main entrance. She brought the note to the school’s director, resulting in the evacuation of the students, who range in age from 6 weeks old to 4 years old, Sippel said. All students and staff were subsequently sent home after police arrived, Sippel said.
Caruso, who was a substitute teacher, may have written the note in an attempt to leave school early, Sippel said.
The nursery school has been in business at the Prospect Plains location for approximately five years. The school is one of five private nursery schools owned and operated by Sippel, who said he has been in the day care business for 16 years.
"This was more or less a hoax," Sippel said of the incident, which resulted in the school hiring a private security firm that monitored the school from Jan. 23 until Caruso’s arrest Jan. 25.
"[We learned from police] that Caruso wrote the note," Sippel said. "She said she found it in a flowerpot outside, and gave it to our director. I don’t know too much about her, but she worked for us for some period of time."
Sippel said it was the first time he has witnessed this type of event at either the Prospect Plains school or at any of the other day-care centers he owns in southern New Jersey.
Staff members in both public and privately owned schools are all required to undergo stringent background checks, such as FBI fingerprinting, before they can be considered for a school position, Sippel said.
Despite the rigorous testing, Sippel said an incident such as the recent bomb scare is something that just can’t be predicted.
"There’s no way you can go inside somebody’s head and know they would do this odd thing," Sippel said.