June 15th, 2017

Schools are required to do several safety drills each year, so that we can be prepared for things that we hope will never happen. We are required to do a tornado drill, two lockdown drills, five fire drills and one combined fire and bomb threat drill. The bomb threat drill is a new requirement that we have from the provincial government this year. From a child’s perspective, it will be almost exactly the same as a fire drill. When they hear the alarm they are to exit the building as they regularly would. The difference is that there will be an announcement that this is a bomb threat drill, and then the fire alarm will sound. We are required by the government to use clear language, so even though we know that it is a word that could be upsetting to some of our students, we have to use the word “bomb” as part of the drill. There are some differences for staff when we do this drill, in terms of observations that they need to make during the drill.

Our staff will be giving students a heads up so that they know what to expect, and we are paying special attention to children who may have had difficult experiences that this could remind them of (such as children who came to Canada as refugees).

We plan to do this drill on Monday June 19.