Belmont school will lock down tomorrow morning to practice safety.
The school will hold a Lockdown Awareness Exercise at 9:55 a.m. tomorrow (Jan. 15).
The intent is to educate and empower staff, students and even parents, who were told of the drill in a letter home.
“It’s the same idea that kids have to learn the protocol for fire drills,” said vice principal Mike Huck. “We’re asking kids to do the same thing with lockdown events ... it’s to give kids knowledge and sense of safety.”
The provincewide initiative starts with an announcement from the office that ends in “lockdown, lockdown, lockdown.”
“There’s four things we’re concerned about really, they are: lock the door, lights out, get quiet and stay out of sight,” Huck said.
Then they await the okay from the office, or emergency personnel.
“The idea behind keeping it simple is offering reassurance to kids,” Huck said. “That’s designed to reassure kids and make it simple for staff to follow because in an event like that you can be pretty scattered.”
The only lockdown situations Huck recalls at Belmont over the past year have been exercises.
“(Lockdowns) do happen for sure and you have to have the kids prepared for this,” Huck said.
Local RCMP will be involved in the 15 to 20 minute exercise that does not include evacuating the school.