West Ferris high school in lockdown mode this morning

There were some tense moments Thursday morning at West Ferris Secondary School as staff and students went into lockdown as three assailants stormed the halls of the school looking for one of their children.





Although the lockdown was only a drill, it drives home the reality that schools are vulnerable to a number of safety issues inside and out and that knowing what to do in an intense situation. Officials say the event served as a valuable training tool for students, faculty and law enforcement.

Inspector Kirk Kelusky says there are three approaches to securing a school based on what the situation is and today’s drill demonstrated how police react when the threat is in the school. He says within an hour they had the incident, lockdown, takedown, debriefing and everyone was back to class.

“In the provincial model we have we’ve narrowed it down to three levels of lockdown, there’s they shelter and place which has to do with environmental issues outside the school. The school needs to have a plan or the building needs to have a plan to deal with air quality issues as a result of fire, chemical spills or some other quality issue, that’s the first level.”

“The next level is hold and secure, how does the building school respond to a threat on the outside of the school should the police have an incident with a violent person on the outside. What is the school going to do to ensure that no person is going to get in there that isn’t authorized. That’s a plan they need to have in place, that’s a plan they need to practice.”

“And the last level, that highest level has to do with a lockdown which has to do with the treat being inside the school or the building that is what we practised today. That’s what we trained to do today and that’s what we were testing today was the school’s plan.”





West Ferris Principal Terry Blair says the students and staff came through with flying colours but there is still room to improve.

“Within less than a minute our classrooms and rooms were closed our students were behind the doors. For the most part everyone was quiet so I was really please because has this been a real situation they would have been safe.”

“I was going from floor to floor and first of all the halls were clear so that was very gratifying and made me feel much more confident in what was going on. All of our students were safe all of that being said I did hear a classroom or two where instruction was still going on and that’s definitely a no-no so that’s something that we’ll have to reinforce with all of our staff again that when it is a lockdown there is to be no talking once so ever.”

Blair says not knowing what type of threat the school would be faced with everyone did a great deal of preparatory work including sending notes home to parents alerting them that there would be a drill.

“We did training with North Bay Police of our staff that was in March, then early this week we had an assembly involving the students and staff.”

“When going through the three scenarios the shelter and place, the hold and secure and lockdown, but we were pretty sure it would be a lockdown, further to that we had announcements and really tried to reinforce with the students the importance of not using your cell phones having them turned off.”

She also says it is a fine balance when talking about a real possible threat and instrumenting policy.

“We don’t want to panic anyone, but we want to have them know that it is a very real possibility so everyone has heard of Taber and the other incidents that have occurred so we tell them that we want to ensure that if something like that were to happen in North Bay and in particular our school that we are prepared for that.”

“So in other words we’re being as proactive as possible.”



Constable Joe Whitehead, who played one of the intruders, says they accomplished the goal.

“Our whole goal of the exercise was to get the kids locked in the classroom in case there was someone in the school that wasn’t supposed to be there.”

“You could see the kids as soon as they said lockdown that they started running towards their classrooms some were running outside.”



Acting Sergeant Jim Kilroy says officers are always training but the more reality based training officers have the better equipped they are to handle threats should they arise.

“Of course we can’t bring 700 volunteers into or training and even though this training was for the students and the teachers and the school themselves it brings our officers into a situation where there is more of a sense of reality.”

“And the closer we can bring our training to reality the more effective the training.”



The training will happen at all six area high schools.