The bomb threat phoned in to the Weyburn Comprehensive School on April 24, the first in at least two decades, caused a lot of stress on the part of everyone involved, said WCS principal Ken Larson, but the protocols on how to respond worked very well.

The school's protocols dictate how school officials should act in such an emergency situation, and now the administration will be able to make some minor changes based on this experience, he added.

Police Chief Rod Horsman said the city police were notified of the threat by Comp staff at 11:13 a.m., and they worked with staff to first evacuate all students to the gymnasium, where they were searched and sent home for the day. The police then did a room-by-room search of the school before declaring the facility was safe by early afternoon. The search included the many duffelbags and suitcases which were gathered for the music students, who left at the end of the school day on their annual music trip.

Asked how seriously the police are taking this situation, Chief Horsman said, "It's treated as a serious criminal charge. When we talk to the school administrators, we ask them, 'how seriously do you take it?' They have to evaluate it and act accordingly. We've had bomb threats before, such as at the Court House and at different times; we have to take it seriously, because you just don't know if it's for real."

As of Tuesday morning, Inspector Russ Chartrand said the police are still tracking down tips and continuing to investigate, but have not made any arrests as yet.

"We're pleased with how things went. Every situation is different. In the future, it might be different, depending on the call. We have different protocols for all kinds of situations," said Larson. "I think the way we handled it and the fact the kids were evacuated out of the school showed how seriously we took it. We're pretty well forced to take these situations seriously, and that causes a problem."

He pointed out the students lost four out of six hours of class instruction, and the incident caused a lot of stress to everyone in the school, staff and students alike.

"It's a pain for everybody. It's hard on the emergency services for a town our size. There was stress, and it was designed to cause stress. If you have a person trying to get a day off school this way, that's a pretty ugly way to do it," said Larson.

The principal added he doesn't know what penalties such a charge would garner, but he hopes the penalties will be severe enough to make whoever was responsible for this incident to think twice about ever doing something like this again.

"It's always a concern when you receive a threat against a school population. We do have a liaison with the police, and that's particularly strong with the Weyburn police. That was evident in their response to this incident," said Don Rempel, director of education for Southeast Cornerstone School Division.

He added he was pleased to hear the school's procedures for locking down and evacuating the school in an orderly way worked well, enabling the police to carry out their search of the building to ensure it was safe.

Rempel said other schools in the division will be able to learn from this situation at the Comp, but noted every school community has to develop their own procedure and protocol, as every school is a different size and are in unique communities with particular needs.

"We really do encourage all schools to develop a liaison with the police in their community and develop a localized procedure. That was put in place this year; we don't have a general template, but we encourage each school community to work with the police," said Rempel.

Larson said he was proud of the way his staff handled this situation, noting, "It was the first time for a lot of them for this particular type of situation. Some of the staff were upset; obviously they don't want to be in a building where it might blow up. People react differently. There were some good suggestions from staff as to how we can change things in our protocol."

This type of situation, unfortunately, is one that a school really can't practice for, added Larson, but the "full effect" of such a threat brings out any shortcomings in a protocol that a school can work on for the future.

The worst part of this incident, said Larson, is that it was perpetrated against the students, who paid the price by losing more than half of their school day, plus having to deal with the stress of the threat. Over 200 left later that day for their music trip to Minneapolis.