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‘Our schools are safe’

Mission school superintendent Angus Wilson says training, protocols in place
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With violent incidents in U.S. schools grabbing headlines across North America, it raises concerns and questions about the level of safety in the B.C. school system.

Angus Wilson, superintendent of the Mission school district, said there are protocols, training and plans in place to protect students and teachers.

“Our schools are safe. They are as safe as we can make them without turning them into fortresses and bunkers.”

The superintendent said prevention is the first step to ensuring safety. Counsellors support schools and the students in them, to detect if there are mental health issues or other factors that may lead to problems.

Counsellors and principals receive training in Violent Threat Risk Assessment and Digital Threat Assessment, which helps them to determine the severity of a situation.

“If somebody sends a note with something unsettling on it, you have to determine as best you can if that’s just an upset and angry person or something that might have some merit to it,” Wilson said.

Lockdown drills are held a minimum of twice a year at Mission schools to familiarize students and teachers with emergency procedures.

“We practise, just like we practise fire drills and earthquakes and so on.”

Principals also routinely check doors to make sure they shut and lock properly.

Wilson also said there are a series of protocols in place, including:

1. School threat assessment protocol: What do you do when a bomb threat or other threat becomes known?

2. Critical incident: When a bad thing has happened or is happening, how do staff respond?

3. Crisis management: What do you do afterwards, for example, if a suicide took place involving a student or teacher? What messaging do you send the students? Wilson said you don’t want to glamorize it, but also don’t want to ignore it.

“We run through those things. We practise different kinds of scenarios and how those unfold and we also observe incidents elsewhere.”

Another important piece of training is communication. In a lockdown situation, when police may be involved, parents need to know that children are accounted for and safe.

Wilson said the message would be sent out on Twitter and on the district website.

“Lockdown situations means the RCMP are involved. It can take several hours to ensure the area is safe.” Parents rushing to the school can make it harder for police.

While all of these protocols are necessary, Wilson said the vast majority of threats are exactly that – threats.

“(They are) angry kids who don’t have the means to do anything or just want to impress his friends.”

However, he feels there are more threats today than there used to be and Wilson believes it has to do with mental health issues and drug addictions.

He said there are more people with mental health issues walking the streets than in a previous era.

“If we look at the Abbotsford incident (in 2016 a man entered an Abbotsford school and stabbed two students, killing one of them), I think that individual would have been under closer supervision in a past era.”

Despite the need for training, protocols and an increase in threats, Wilson said Mission schools, overall “are extremely safe” and no major security upgrades are planned.

“There are schools in the States where they have locked the doors. We are not going to have metal detectors, we’re not going to have armed guards at the front because when you get into a bunker mentality, everybody gets into a bunker mentality. The kids become anxious and, it’s the old adage about when ‘the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ That’s not the education system we want.

“The more you make a school look like a prison, the more it feels like a prison.”

However, there are some security measures already in place.

Mission Secondary School, both middle schools and some of the elementary schools have cameras installed.

There are rules where they can and cannot be. No cameras are allowed in classrooms or washrooms but they can be located in hallways and outside by the entranceways.

Use of cameras at schools has to be approved each year by the local Parent Advisory Councils.

The cameras are not a prevention tool as they are not monitored, but are used to see what happened and who was involved in an incident.

While many violent school incidents involve students as the antagonist, Wilson said the bigger concern in Mission is the random stranger.

“With our counsellors and our vice-principals, we tend to have a pretty good feel for the pulse of the kids and know who we need to support mental-health-wise and anxiety-wise, whereas when some guy walks in off the street, we’re never really quite sure.”

School staff, especially at the elementary level, will quickly approach strangers to inquire why they are there. Principals and vice-principals also walk through the schools, both to interact with students and observe who may be visiting the school.

“If a principal is sitting at their desk all day, then they aren’t doing their jobs,” Wilson said.



Kevin Mills

About the Author: Kevin Mills

I have been a member of the media for the past 34 years and became editor of the Mission Record in February of 2015.
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