LUNENBURG, Mass. -- Parents and teachers in Lunenburg got a scare earlier this week when a man entered the high school saying he was there to meet a student he had chatted with on the internet.

NewsCenter 5's Mary Saladna reported that the school has security warnings posted on its doors advising visitors that they must check in at the office. On Monday morning about 10:45 a.m., however, an 18-year-old Rhode Island man was found roaming the hallways looking for a female student.

"There were alert staff members who picked up on this person in our building without a visitor's badge (and) informed the administrators right away and we picked up on this person and escorted him out of the building," school principal Michael Barney said.

"When he was questioned as to what he was doing there, he simply told them that he wanted to leave a note on a girl's locker, that he had met her online," Lunenburg police Sgt. Ernest Gould said.

Police said the young man claimed that he didn't know the female student was only 15. He cooperated with authorities and had no prior record. But the concern was over how he managed to track down a young woman from another state and nearly force a meeting.

"It's not hard to find somebody if you really want to," Gould said.

Lunenburg high school parents learned about the incident through a memo that was sent home from the school.

"My kids are all so busy that they're not online and I don't think that they're in chat rooms but I'm certainly going to be looking over their shoulder a little bit more now," parent Robin Grammel said.

That's a good approach, according to Dr. Michael Rich of Children's Hospital's Center on Media and Child Health.

"Parents need to be as aware of the media actions and interactions that their kids have as they do about the kids they hang out with or the foods they eat or whether they put a seat belt on when they're in a car," Rich said.

Rich said parents should talk to their kids about the dangers of the Internet, monitor their Internet use and encourage their kids to keep their guard up.

Lunenburg's school district has already enlisted a nationally-known Internet safety expert to conduct a special seminar next month; one designed for high school students, another for middle school students and a third for parents.