‘Something has to be done’
Parent says recent incidents at Memorial High School are ‘scary’ for all parents
A parent of a student at Memorial High School says the recent string of evacuations at the Sydney Mines school are “scary” for parents.
Marlyce MacMullin, whose son is in Grade 9 at the school, said every time she hears of the school being evacuated, she immediately wants to get in her car and pick him up. “I know a lot of my friends are saying I’m just being crazy and that this happened all last year too, but I’m concerned because what happens if some time there really is a bomb inside the school — it’s a scary thing. That’s my child.”
Since last week, Memorial High School has been evacuated three times, forcing students to the front property of the facility instead of being in classes.
Last Thursday, students and staff were evacuated from the school after someone let off a smoke signal canister underneath a stairway inside the building, sending orange smoke through the hallways.
No one was hurt in the incident, however it caused minor damage to some ceiling tiles in the school. Classes were cancelled for the remainder of the day as precaution.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, students and staff were once again evauated after someone called in a bomb threat to the school, sometime between 1-1:30 p.m.
After a search of the building, no bomb was found and police deemed the school safe for students to return to classes for the afternoon. On Wednesday, the school was once again evacuated, at around 10:30 a.m., when someone called in to report a smoke flare inside the building.
No smoke flare was found and no one was hurt in the incident. Police cleared the school and students returned to classes around 11:45 a.m.
“(Tuesday) when it happened, my son called right away, but we had already received the notification from the school board,” said MacMullin. “He called his father, who told him to call me, so he did, and I asked him if he wanted to come home and he said he did.”
“I was kind of relieved knowing that he was home, where I knew where he was and that
nothing was going to happen to him.”
Michelle MacLeod, spokesperson for the Cape BretonVictoria Regional School Board, said threats can’t be ignored.
“You have to respond to them and that’s board policy, so we did the same thing Wednesday as we did on Tuesday — we evacuated the school and called emergency services,” she said. “We had them check the school; once they did that, it was OK for students to return to classes.”
MacLeod said parents and guardians can receive messages to their phones from the school board, letting them know of any emergency at their son’s or daughter’s school, through a program called “Power School.”
“Parents have to provide up-to-date information at the beginning of the year — it’s up the parents to provide that upto-date
information,” she said. “Parents wanting to receive these messages should contact the school. It’s never too late.”
MacMullin believes all parents and students at the school are tired of these continuous issues.
“I think they’re fed up with the fact this keeps happening — I know one of my friends has been missing time from work — something needs to be done,” said MacMullin.
“Every year it seems like the same thing happens and there’s no resolution, the police obviously went in and they did their diligence, but something more has to be done to stop it — can’t they trace the phone call?”
Because of parent-teacher meetings on Friday, there won’t be any classes for students.
MacMullin said because of the recent incidents at the school,
she’s considering keeping her son home for the remainder of the week.
“I’m going to talk to him when he gets home (Wednesday) and hear him out and see what his thoughts are,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind keeping him home tomorrow, there’s no school Friday, give him until Monday.”
Police are investigating Wednesday’s incident.
“It appears to be another prank call,” said Desiree Vassallo, spokesperson for the Cape Breton Regional Police. “But, all such calls have to be taken seriously and procedures followed to make sure.”
Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact the regional police at 902-563-5151 or anonymously through Crime Stoppers.