THUNDER BAY -- Local school boards are taking a moment to reflect on their own policies following the aftermath of a mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.
The tragedy made international headlines Friday when an armed 20-year-old-man walked into a Newtown, Conn. elementary school and open fired. The massacre left 26 dead – 20 of those victims were children.
Joan Powell, director of education for Thunder Bay Catholic District School board, said their thoughts and prayers go out to all those associated with Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Powell wanted to reassure students and staff that they are safe while they are at school.
“We’re just devastated for them,” she said.
“As educators we’re just feeling the pain and we’re praying for them and thinking of them. When something like this happens else where it really causes us to reflect on where we got everything in place. Violence in schools in Canada is very rare compared to places like the United States, but it still causes us to stop and think.”
Both the Catholic board and Lakehead Public Schools have worked with police forces to develop plans for lockdowns.
The school boards run training scenarios with teachers and staff to prepare them in the unlikely case that a lockdown could happen.
Powell said they regularly run through these strategies with staff and also practice lockdown with students so everyone knows what to do.
Although few children have asked about the incident, Powell said they want to try to minimize student’s exposure to the tragedy.
“Especially with younger children, some parents have probably guarded their children to the news so we have to be very sensitive of that,” she said.
“With the older students, we want to be open and honest on what’s going on. The most important messages to students is that they’re safe, their school is safe and school violence is rare in Canada.”
The flags at all the catholic schools will be at half-mast for the week in memory of the victims.
Charlie Bishop, an education officer with Lakehead Public Schools, shared some of Powell’s thoughts and wanted to reinforce that their schools are safe for students.
The public board has a number of policies in place if an incident were to happen and work closely with the police to develop those protocols, he said.
One of those policies includes ensuring anyone who enters a school must sign in. If they don’t then someone will intercept them and told to leave the school if they refuse.
“Lockdowns happen when there is an issue in the school,” Bishop said.
“There’s somebody in the school that could be a threat. We practice twice a year and for the past four years, we’ve been practicing with police.”
The public board has two protocols involved with lockdowns.
One is to keep students inside their classrooms because a threat is outside the building and the other for environmental hazards such as chemical leak or dangerous weather.
“We feel very secure with what we have in place,” he said.
“We just recently checked that all of our communication systems in the school are consistent so that any kind of alarms or messages can be heard inside the school and outside the school. We’ve also ensured that those messages could be sent through a telephone.”
