School Safety

School Ground Safety

Fire Drills

Periodic fire drills will be scheduled so that students and staff are familiar with the emergency procedures. Each school is mandated to have a certain number of practice drills each year.

School Lockdown

An emergency may prevent the safe evacuation of the building and require steps to isolate students and staff from danger by instituting a school lockdown.

In a lockdown situation, all students are kept in classrooms or designated locations that are away from danger.  Staff members are responsible for accounting for the students and ensuring no one leaves the classroom or safe area until an “all clear” announcement is made.  As with fire drills, school lockdown drills will occur throughout the year to familiarize students with the procedure.

Hold and Secure - This would be used to secure the school should there be an unsafe event outside of the School.  In this situation classroom doors and exterior doors will be locked and monitored, to allow any students from outside to enter.

Sheltering in Place - This would be used when personal safety is considered to be in danger if anyone leaves the school.  This would mainly be used when there is an environmental or weather related event.

Threat Assessment Process

Foothills School Division is committed to creating and maintaining school environments in which the emotional and physical safety of students, staff, parents and others is a priority. Schools cannot ignore any threat of violence. When threat making behaviours occur schools initiate a process called Threat Assessment. 

Each school has a threat assessment team that is multidisciplinary. The team will include an administrator and Family School Liaison Counselor, and may include RCMP, Child and Family Services Workers and Community Mental Health therapists.

What is a Threat?
A threat is an expression of intent to do harm or act out violently against someone or something. Threats may be verbal, written, drawn, posted on the internet or made by gesture. Threat making behaviours include, but not limited to, serious acts of violence, fire setting, threats to kill, bomb threats and possession of weapons (or replicas). 

If your child comes home and reports threat making behaviours please notify the school administration immediately. 

The Threat Assessment Process
When schools learn of threat making behaviours they activate the Threat Assessment Protocol. Once the process has been activated, interviews may be held with the student(s), the threat maker, parents and staff to determine the level of risk and to develop an appropriate response to the incident. Intervention and support plans will be developed with the threat assessment team and shared with parents of the student that made the threats. 

To ensure the physical and emotional safety of everyone, it is important for all parties to engage in the process. If for some reason there is a reluctance to participate in the process, by other threat maker or parent/guardian, the threat assessment process will continue in order to ensure a safe and caring learning environment for all.

Should you have further questions about the threat assessment process, please contact the school.