A 14-year-old female student has been charged with uttering threat against Innisfail High School last week.
Police responded to the threat around 11:20 a.m. on March 7 on the school property.
Innisfail RCMP Staff Sgt. Chris Matechuk said the threat wasn’t directed towards anyone in particular.
The threat was “student would shoot up the school and was dead serious,” said Matechuk.
Whether the threat was verbal or electronic is unclear.
Kurt Sacher, superintendent of schools for Chinook’s Edge School Division, said the threat occurred just before lunchtime.
The school principal was notified and the school liaison officer escorted the student out of the school property.
Sacher said all parents were notified about the brief incident that took place under three minutes.
Sacher said the division will work with the student’s family to consider alternative education arrangements.
The threat occurred just days before Chinook’s Edge School Division signed a Community Violence Threat Risk Assessment protocol along with two other school divisions.
Sacher said the division is involved in the protocol to be proactive.
“It’s mapping out better ways for all of us to work together to honour safety in our schools,” he said.
“The fact that this situation was dealt with swiftly and appropriately with no danger to anyone whatsoever speaks to the fact that protocols are paying off in our schools.”
As to how often such threats take place in schools within the division, Sacher said it’s rare but it has happened in the past.
“You do deal with an occasional student who gets frustrated with whatever and utters a threat and makes a statement and we want to air on the side of caution,” Sacher said.
mamta.lulla@reddeeradvocate.com
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