School board superintendent pleased with how "gun" incident was handled by local schools and the RCMP

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

The superintendent of the Tri-County Regional School Board says he is pleased with how three local schools and the RCMP handled a situation on Wednesday, which was initiated by a report that a student inside Yarmouth Junior High might have a handgun in his possession.

“A staff member saw a student with a gun. He didn’t know if it was real or a toy,” said superintendent Phil Landry.

The “gun” turned out to be a plastic pellet gun. But because that wasn’t initially known, two adjacent schools were placed in lockdown while the administration of the junior high pulled the student out of an industrial arts classroom and brought him to the office to be questioned by the RCMP.

The 17-year-old Grade 10 student was released after being questioned.

The student was attending class in the junior high building because the high school makes use of the industrial arts classes there.

The Yarmouth Junior High was not placed in lockdown while the situation was unfolding.

“When the RCMP came and spoke to the administration of Yarmouth Junior High, it was decided the best possible way not to create a scene was to go and get the boy and the administration of the junior high didn’t have a problem with that,” said Landry.

Junior high principal Don Berry went to get the student and brought him back to the RCMP.

The RCMP did, on the other hand, request that Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School be locked down.

“They reason they requested that is they didn’t want the students to get in their cars and then we’d have a problem with traffic control,” said Landry.

While this was happening the administration at the high school saw that some elementary school students were on the playground at Central School.

“Not knowing the situation, they called the administration of Central and they made the decision to bring the kids in,” said Landry. That school was also placed in lockdown.

All schools within the Tri-County board have an emergency management plan in place. The Tri-County’s plan is based on a document from the Chignecto-Central school board called Zero to 30, as well as on work carried out by Halifax Regional Police Constable Mark Young who was selected by the province to come up with a security plan for all of the province’s public school. The response plan involves different colour codes that can be immediately implemented in schools to deal with such things as a lock down situation or an evacuation scenario.

The school board has discussed how the Oct. 1 situation was handled with each of the three schools, and intends to do the same again in a meeting with the RCMP and principals.

But as far as Landry is concerned, things were handled properly.

“From my perspective and what I know now, the RCMP and the administration of the three schools did an exceptional job,” he says. “The safety and security of students and staff is the main aim.”

As for the student at the centre of the incident, the school board is not discussing what, if any, disciplinary action may be taken. The school board does have a policy prohibiting students from having weapons on school property.