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FAIRFIELD, IOWA -- Fairfield Middle School had a bit of a scare Wednesday.

It was around noon when some middle school staff saw a suspicious man hanging around the middle school.

When staff interacted with the man, he didn’t seem to have a purpose for being there and staff said it didn’t feel quite right.

Superintendent Art Sathoff said staff acted how they should have and followed the district’s correct protocol.

“We had students out on the playground at recess. There wasn't any direct interaction with them but they had those students go into the school and did the same with Pence Elementary because it's right across the street in close proximity and we call that a level one lockdown until we know that there's no threat, nobody goes in or out of the school and we contacted law enforcement and they responded very promptly and picked the gentleman up and about ten minutes later the lockdown was over,” said Sathoff.

Sathoff said that within an hour or two of the incident, the district put out a message on the web and used their campus messenger as well to inform parents of what happened.