If the students behind a series of threats directed at local high schools this week think they’re being funny, then their classmates have a message for them: They’re not.
“I just hate the fact that people joke about it, because it’s a very serious subject,” Mackenzie Allan, a Grade 12 student at Kitchener’s Eastwood Collegiate Institute, said Thursday.
On Wednesday, Allan discovered a message in a school washroom claiming the building would be blown up the following morning.
Knowing there had been threats of shootings at other schools in Waterloo Region recently, she reported the message to school authorities, who in turn called police.
Allan says she figures the threat was a copycat based on the earlier threats, rather than anything with serious intent behind it.
“If someone’s going to do it, they’re not going to scribble it on the girls’ bathroom wall,” she said.
While Allan showed up at school on Thursday, the vast majority of her peers did not. Some likely stayed home because of safety concerns, while others might have done it out of a desire to have a five-day weekend.
Like many of his peers, Grade 12 student Gerlin Arita thinks the second reason was likely also why the threat was made.
“I think that someone just didn’t want to come to school today,” he said.
School board officials and police have called for a stop to the threats, noting that they induce fear in school communities and tie up resources that could be used elsewhere.
Some Eastwood students agree with this assessment, saying they wish the recent run of threats would come to an end.
“I think it’s kind of ridiculous, with the cops … wasting their time here when there’s nothing really happening,” said Alex Thomson.
Another threat surfaced on Thursday, as a message claiming a shooting would occur next Tuesday was seen inside Grand River Collegiate Institute.
To ensure school safety, authorities will be at Grand River on Tuesday. If past events at Eastwood and other schools are any example, many students won’t.
With reporting by Daryl Morris
