The head of Chinook’s Edge School Division is praising the actions of staff and students following last week’s lockdown of several Innisfail schools.
Superintendent Kurt Sacher said the Sept. 12 lockdown, which lasted between 12 and 15 minutes, was handled extremely well.
Sacher said the school division acted quickly to secure Innisfail Jr/Sr High School, Innisfail Middle School and École John Wilson Elementary School after a high school employee contacted the RCMP around 3 p.m. to report a possible gunshot.
Sacher said while the initial report was the sound could have been caused by construction or something else, the RCMP erred on the side of caution.
“Just to be absolutely safe, they made a decision to ask us in the corridor of Innisfail … to lock them all down,” Sacher explained.
Students were moved away from the doors and windows to ensure they remained safe in a worst-case scenario, Sacher added.
“Their safety is job one,” Sacher said, explaining the lockdown was not lifted until the schools got the all-clear from the RCMP, which was then verified by a senior official at the school division’s central office. “All of our processes worked very well. We’re really proud of our people (and) how the principals in Innisfail worked together to respond.”
IHS principal Wayne Pineau said vice-principal Narsh Ramrattan heard what sounded like a gunshot and called the RCMP.
“He handled it as well as you could expect,” Pineau said. “(You) worry about student safety first and make sure we have all our classes inside, doors locked and then we start checking the other things – contacting central office. He did an amazing job of handling that because he was the only administrator in the building at the time.”
Pineau said IHS was under an administrative lockdown because school officials and the RCMP were not concerned that an external threat was actually inside the building.
“We were more worried about what was the deal going on outside,” he explained. “Once we had doors locked and kids secured in classrooms we didn’t have them do the normal lights out, silent treatment. We just kept them working, business as usual, in the classroom.”
Innisfail RCMP Cpl. Jeff Hildebrandt confirmed police responded to a call for a “sharp” unidentified noise.
“It’s believed to be a possible firearms-related offence. But there’s absolutely no confirmation of that,” Hildebrandt said on Friday. “We obviously dealt with it as a worst-case scenario just in case. That’s why the lockdown happened – just to be cautious.”
Hildebrandt confirmed police are presently conducting a followup investigation.
While the incident turned out to be a non-threat, Sacher said it was a good test.
“It was a wonderful opportunity for us to learn,” he said. “Any time something like that happens, no matter how well it goes off, we stop and reflect on our practices because we want to be meticulous about those. Our school-based staff will have been reflecting, our central office leadership team will be meeting to check over how those policies and procedures worked and are there any new ways we can move forward.”
During the division’s school board meeting on Sept. 14, trustees were informed of an e-mail from an Innisfail parent thanking the board for the way the lockdown was handled.
