Take all possible steps to ensure school safety

Rural Manitobans and Nova Scotians were stunned this week by the story of a foiled plot to attack two high schools — one in each province — a situation that served to validate every parent’s worst fears when it comes to student safety.

Manitoba RCMP and the Bridgewater Police Service confirmed the arrests earlier this month of two youths in connection with what they allege was a planned, co-ordinated attack at Rivers Collegiate in western Manitoba’s Rolling River School Division and a Nova Scotia secondary school.

This revelation followed horrifying news last month out of the rural B.C. community of Tumbler Ridge, where eight people, including six victims shot at a secondary school, were killed, and dozens more injured.

Suffice to say that while school safety has been under increased scrutiny in Canada since the Tumbler Ridge shooting, so has parent anxiety.

On Thursday, the Sun was contacted by a parent with a child in a western Manitoba school who was urging the paper to follow up on our coverage of the foiled school attacks and find out whether school and division staff in the region actively watch for warning signs when it comes to potentially dangerous students, and how they handle them.

Unsurprisingly, their focus was their own child, who they say had been recently threatened by another student, and they were concerned that school personnel were not taking the threat seriously enough.

Similar concerns were echoed on social media this week by area residents who were concerned that kids have far too much access to the internet these days.

“This is exactly why parents should be monitoring everything their children do online,” wrote one person underneath news of the Rivers Collegiate attack plot.

“What kind of problems do these teens have?” wrote another. “Is there help for them?”

Another suggested conditions at the schools may have contributed to these two youths allegedly acting out in this way.

“Thank goodness no one was hurt,” she wrote. “These (two) young people need help and … IF… this was a result of them being bullied then more needs to be done about that as well.”

School shootings in Canada, thankfully, remain rare occurrences — particularly in comparison to our American cousins. Since the turn of the century there have been a total of 30 school shootings nationwide, 13 of them deadly.

Of course, that doesn’t mean your local elementary or high school can’t still be dangerous, even in a country with strict guns laws like Canada. But there are ways that schools and school divisions can address school safety in a more proactive way.

Last June, a 15-year-old Black student was taken to Brandon Regional Health Centre in serious condition after he was stabbed in the chest, forearms, hands and thighs at École secondaire Neelin High School by a fellow student in what Brandon Police called a “targeted act of hate.”

In the wake of that incident, the Brandon school Division took action by creating new safe schools advisory committees and tasked them with strengthening safety, inclusivity and well-being across the division. The committees were established for each school in the division to support a safe, inclusive and caring school environment for all students, staff and community members.

“Its mandate will include reviewing the division’s safety and care in schools plan, identifying well-being concerns, and recommending strategies for prevention and intervention,” Supt. Mathew Gustafson said last August. “The committee will also review policies such as the code of conduct, digital citizenship, anti-bullying measures and risk response, while monitoring incident reports and attendance to guide planning.”

Recommendations were to be shared with parent councils, school communities and summarized annually at the divisional level. And if trends emerge across schools, Gustafson said that a divisional-level committee could be struck “to provide additional support.”

The intention is for these committees to be responsive to the safety needs of their schools, and to the broader community.

This is on top of a recent investment by the province to speed up ongoing security upgrades in the Brandon School Division in the wake of that attack. It’s also worth noting that Brandon maintains an active School Resource Officer program with dedicated officers.

Of course, these measures won’t completely eliminate violence in schools, force parents to keep their kids away from bad internet influences, or put a stop to student bullying. But it’s a solid step forward to addressing the concerns of both parents and students.

Rural school divisions have insufficient resources at the best of times, so we can’t expect rural schools in Westman to suddenly implement embedded SCOs in every school. But there is something to be said for BSD’s committee approach, which would required fewer resources, but could include parents and school staff.

Given the nature of the foiled school attacks, and the obvious concerns of parents in western Manitoba, rural school divisions should at least consider the idea.

» Matt Goerzen, editor