WSD superintendent speaks out following pair of threats against school

After a pair of threats against Elmwood High School over the past two days, the superintendent of the school division is hoping this isn’t something they become accustomed to.

A pair of bomb threats came in late Sunday night targeting Elmwood High School and Oak Park High School. Classes were cancelled Monday while the police investigated. Investigators determined there was no physical threat to either school.

Then on Monday evening, police were told about a threat made on social media against Elmwood High School.

Police said it was unrelated to the other threats, and a 13-year-old girl was arrested and charged.

Classes were cancelled in the morning Tuesday but resumed in the afternoon.

Matt Henderson, the superintendent of the Winnipeg School Division, said these kinds of incidents disrupt everyone’s lives and remove that feeling of being safe.

“It’s disruptive to families. It’s disruptive to staff and the teachers. It’s disruptive to the community. Elmwood has a daycare, and so we had parents who dropped their kids off have to find daycare and scramble or not go into work for two days,” said Henderson.

“Elmwood is an incredibly safe place to go to school, but for a moment when somebody threatens it, that idea of it being safe wavers for a second, and that’s really disturbing.”

Henderson said the school has resources in place to help students if they feel agitated.

While he feels the school and division handled the incidents extremely well, he hopes this doesn’t become the norm.

“We’re never comfortable with these things, and I never want to be comfortable with somebody making threats on our schools,” he said.

“I would just ask the people who are making these threats and doing these things to just stop because it causes chaos. It causes emotional duress, and it’s not appropriate.”