A week after threats of a mass shooting at McMath secondary, many parents are still asking questions about how the Richmond School District handled the incident.
Around 250 families saw fit to keep their children away from the Steveston school in the few days following last Tuesday, after the threats were made, initially vague on the Monday, before becoming more specific on the Tuesday.
Many parents, via social media and by contacting the Richmond News, are questioning why the school was allowed to open at all on the Tuesday.
While the event ended peacefully when a youth was arrested, there is also concern about the lack of information communicated to the parents, both initially and during the day, with students having to adhere to the “hold and secure” procedure, whereby students and teachers were barred from leaving their classrooms and no one, other than police, was allowed inside the school.
One of the parents, Jon Lee, who has been in contact with the school district, said it needs to be made clearer as to what people should expect in such trying circumstances.
“I’m not trying to call anyone out and I think they did what they could,” said Lee, who has a kid in Grade 9 and also has two nephews and one niece at the school.
“But on Monday, the communication we got from the school was completely vague and then (on Tuesday) we were hearing all sorts of things about bomb squads and armed police.
“I had to try to follow it on the news. The communication should have told us what the threat was and that they were still going to open up the school on Tuesday as it has been deemed safe.
“Stuff happens, I understand that. But when people don’t know, the gap gets filled with all kinds of information.”
District spokesperson David Sadler said that, on Monday, they were made aware of the initial threats “via the Wi-Fi hot spots.”
“The police were called in and the situation was reviewed along with school staff and, based on the information we had, the decision was made with the police that it would be safe for the students to return to school on Tuesday. That was communicated to the parents,” Sadler told the News this week, adding that the final decision to open or close any school rests with the district, but is “based on the advice of the police.”
“If the police said it was unsafe, it would be unlikely that we would go against that.”
At some point during Monday night into Tuesday morning, there was an additional threat made, said Sadler, but the “school district and school staff didn’t become aware of that until the morning, when students had already started to arrive.
“We viewed the additional threat, which was more specific, and the threat assessment was then deemed to be higher and the school went into the ‘hold and secure’ protocol.
“These were essentially two incidents and the school district can only deal with the information it had at the time,” said Sadler.
Lee hopes work is being done to create a clearer path as to what schools and parents do in these situations.
“I want them to come out with an after-action recap,” he said.
“Something that tells us what the procedure is and how much will be communicated to the parents.”
Sadler acknowledged that there will, indeed, be a review of the procedures, including a de-brief on Wednesday between the district and Richmond RCMP.
“Following that, we will have another de-brief with the district executive and the school trustees,” added Sadler. “There will likely be more answers to people’s questions after tomorrow.”
Sadler said the district will look to see if there are ways to improve the protocols and procedures, saying that what is communicated to the parents (in such situations) “will be part of those discussions.”
On Thursday, the News reported that a second youth was being questioned by police after taking responsibility for Tuesday’s drama, which involved threats of a mass shooting, targeting the school’s LGBTQ and Jewish communities.
According to police, the youth in question was “cooperating with police but cannot be identified due to his age.”
