St. Patrick High School in Thunder Bay, Ont., locked down, evacuated after 7th threat in recent weeks

As St. Patrick High School in Thunder Bay, Ont., contends with its seventh threat in a matter of weeks, community members are expressing anger and anxiety over why this is still happening.

On Friday morning, the Catholic high school was placed under a lockdown after receiving a threat. While classes run as per usual under a hold and secure response, this time, students were made to hide in their classrooms in the dark while police officers inspected the school.

Just before 10 a.m., the lockdown was lifted, and members of the Thunder Bay Police Service were seen escorting students out of the school and boarding them onto school buses to be sent home.

Kim Maki waited outside the school while her daughters texted her from their classrooms. She told CBC News she was extremely stressed out about the situation as her daughters told her it was not a drill.

"I think it's sad that I'm sitting outside their school wondering if they're OK in there. They're panicking," Maki said.

"When you come to school, and things like this go down, and then you have to come back again the next day, how do you do that without thinking, 'What if it happens again? Or what if this time it's real?'"

Mental health meeting scheduled

Just after 11:30 a.m., the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board issued a news release saying students will be able to pick up their belongings from the school between 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., with police on site.

A Google Meet will be available at 1:30 p.m. for St. Patrick students to meet with the school's mental health team.

"This is voluntary. However, we feel this is beneficial," the board wrote. "We know this has been a distressing time, and we want to thank families for their patience, understanding and support during this past week. We know this has not been easy."

On Wednesday morning, the Thunder Bay Police Service charged a youth with two counts of mischief and two counts of public mischief in threats made on Tuesday and Wednesday. However, they are still investigating other threats made against the school.

Police said the youth charged is not a student at St. Patrick High School. The suspect has been released from custody and is to appear in court at a later date.

For many in the city, the past month's events recall those of early 2019, when Hammarskjold High School received more than 30 threats in a three-month period, which cost police more than $200,000.

'Your brain is rehearsing trauma'

While some students may be glad to get a Friday off school, Tracy Vaillancourt warns of the long-term impact of these threats on their mental wellbeing.

Vaillancourt is a Tier 1 Canada research chair in school-based mental health and violence prevention at the University of Ottawa. She's also president of the International Society for Research on Aggression.

The tricky thing about school threats is that the community must take them seriously every time, but if they're hoaxes, "it does lower people's threat awareness and threat sensitivity," she explained.

"Your brain is rehearsing trauma, and that cannot be good for your brain," she said of lockdowns. "For some students, it actually evokes trauma symptoms in them."

Going through repeated situations like these can retrain the brain into responding abnormally to real danger, she said. 

"It either becomes normalized where now there's no reaction when there needs to be a reaction – because the reaction keeps people safe – or it's an overreaction to even minor events or even ambiguous events, and that's not good either," said Vaillancourt.

It's important for the school and school board to continue communicating effectively with students and families when these threats occur. Not only does this keep them informed, but it also creates a sense of safety and trust, she said.

"Transparency is kindness, and it reduces anxiety, so if they understood why the schools make the decisions that they do and what the intention is, I think then they'll be in a better place to manage it and understand it."

As for the person(s) making the repeated threats, Vaillancourt said there's a myriad of motivating factors, from boredom to psychopathy.

"If their goal is to disrupt education there, it seems like they're doing a good job at that," she said. "If their goal is to stress out their peers, it seems like they're doing a good job at that as well."