Overview
- Students and staff briefly evacuated on Monday morning after a fire alarm, and the campus was cleared for normal operations later that morning with no injuries reported.
- Fire crews found a small amount of smoke near a locker area and traced it to a refrigerant junction box, with the Houston Fire Department Hazmat team determining the levels were not hazardous.
- Bellaire police and fire officials posted that a widely shared image showing the school in flames was fabricated using AI and urged the public to rely on official updates.
- Reporters have not verified the original source of the synthetic image, and Bellaire police said there is no open investigation and referred further questions to Houston ISD.
- Parents received mixed messages from the principal about smoke versus an odor, which he later called a communication loophole, as experts told ABC News schools should prepare to counter AI-driven misinformation.