Ammunition found at school
Opposition MLA raises questions about safety
Unused ammunition found recently at Colonel Gray High School was investigated by Charlottetown police, says Education Minister Jordan Brown. Brown was responding to questions from Opposition MLA Jamie Fox in the legislature Thursday after the school alerted parents of the discovery.
“It is obviously a concerning report,” Brown said.
An email from principal Dominique Lecours told parents unused ammunition was recently found at the school, but the police found no “perceived or credible threats.” Lecours asked parents to have conversations with their children to tell them not to bring ammunition or other items that could be considered weapons to school. Brown said one piece of ammunition was found at school, and the police investigation included bringing in a canine unit.
Fox said it didn’t matter how much ammunition was there.
“I don’t care if it’s one bullet or 100 bullets. It’s ammunition in the school,” he said.
The incident also led Fox to question what has been done to evaluate emergency response plans since a threat in 2016 forced the evacuation of schools across P.E.I.
About 19,000 students were taken to safe locations until they were picked up, as teachers and staff followed emergency evacuation plans.
“What has been done since September 2016 to fix some of the inefficiencies found in the emergency response plans?” Fox asked.
Brown said the evacuations provided valuable lessons, and new lockdown procedures were implemented.
There have also been incidents since then that triggered the emergency response plans, and things have gone more smoothly, Brown said.
“I can indicate again, just from my knowledge in the public sphere, that there has been a great deal of work done to refine the process.”
Fox also said he was shocked to find detailed floor plans for Island schools available online.
“Do you feel it’s appropriate to have detailed floor plans of our Island school publicly available online?”
Brown responded by saying it is a policy that would be the Public Schools Branch’s responsibility and there would be other reasons why the plans might or might not be online. It wouldn’t be appropriate for him to say why that is without having more information, Brown said, adding he would try to find out.
“I can say…that there would be obvious countervening policy reasons why there might be an online presence in respect of school mapping and why there might not be,” he said.
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Naloxone is a life-saving medication that can temporarily reverse an opioid overdose situation. Kits are available free of charge to people who are at high risk of opioid-related overdoses, as well as their family and friends, at needle exchange programs, the provincial addictions treatment facility, Queen Street Recovery Clinic, Montague/Souris community mental health and addictions and the Provincial Corrections Centre.
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