School District 43 has finalized a new protocol to help schools handle crises, including bomb threats, violence with weapons and intimidation.
The new threat assessment guide comes just weeks after a bomb threat sent staff and students at Scott Creek middle school out on the field while Coquitlam RCMP officers and sniffer dogs searched the building for a bomb.
The protocol is expected to help schools deal with similar incidents in the future, helping them identify and investigate problem behaviour when staff and students are targeted.
In SD43, bomb threats are rare, the last one occurred at Gleneagle secondary in 2013, but approximately two to three "high-risk" incidents occur each year at most high schools, requiring a district evaluation and threat assessment (a middle school may get one or two). Each must be investigated thoroughly and a plan of action put in place with follow-up monitoring, according to assistant superintendent Julie Pearce.
The new procedure, called the Community Threat Assessment Protocol, carries the signatures of top officials at Coquitlam RCMP and Port Moody Police, the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the Child and Youth Crisis Program, as well as superintendent Patricia Gartland and board chair Judy Shirra, and will make it easier for these agencies to share student information when school safety is threatened.
"Part of the mandate is preparing a community protocol with community partners for addressing potential threats. We want to be able to have communication with those partners," explained Rissa Wilson, acting CABE principal, who co-authored and presented the new protocol at Tuesday's board of education meeting along with counselling co-ordinator Anna Lemmo.
IDENTIFYING THREAT LEVEL
In the works since 2010 but already being used at schools, the protocol sets out a plan for identifying and dealing with low-, moderate- and high-risk threats, including data collection, interviews and sharing of information between agencies.
The plan also carries a "fair notice" provision, to be included in student agendas handed out each year, letting students and parents know that student information could be shared between agencies in the event of threatening behaviour.
Occasionally, the student is a threat to him or herself, through self-harm or threats of suicide, and the protocol can be used in these circumstances as well to collect information and help the child. In all cases, the goal is to help students reintegrate back into school life, Lemmo said.
FOCUS ON SUPPORTING THE STUDENT
"Family, social, school, personality you have to look at all those factors," Lemmo said in explaining the strategy for re-integration, which she said could benefit from the new collaborative protocol because students might be able to bypass waiting lists to get counselling.
Lemmo said parents and guardians are also required to participate while students have to agree to a plan of action, which could include drug and alcohol counselling, with monitoring a key part of the follow up in the violence threat/risk assessment report.
The key is keeping track of a student's behaviour and intervening appropriately. For example, a student could be well-behaved but, all of a sudden, exhibit violent behaviour or a student might be aggressive but their violent behaviour could escalate. Counsellors need to know a child's "baseline" behaviour and be alert to any changes.
"Kids don't just snap and go in and do a school shooting," Wilson said. "We pay attention to the signs and signals that are there in kids at risk."
ACTION PLAN
The following are the levels of threat and the follow-up action as laid out in the guide for responding to threats in the SD43 protocol:
Immediate threat: Call 911 could involve weapon in possession that poses serious threat to others, or a plan for a serious assault, homicidal/suicidal behaviour that threatens safety, fire, violent intruder, assailant, specific bomb threat; could involve lockdown/lockout or evacuation, handled by superintendent and police.
High-risk behaviours: Could involve possession of weapon/replica, bomb threat plan, verbal/written internet threats to kill/injure (specific and plausible), internet threats to kill or injure self/others, fire setting, threats of other acts of violence, increase of intensity and/or frequency of worrisome behaviour.
Worrisome behaviours: Could involve violent content in drawing pictures or written stories/journals, or vague threatening statements, unusual interest in fire, significant change in child's baseline behaviour.
