Roy Getchell in his office at Haines School on Wednesday, Oct. 18. Lex Treinen photo.

Haines Schools superintendent Roy Getchell sat down to share the latest on the investigation into a school shooting threat and what the district is doing to keep students safe.

Lex Treinen: How did you learn about this threat and what was the timeline of the actions you took?

Roy Getchell: It was yesterday afternoon and the principal came in and reported that a student had reported it. Thankfully, this is not our norm. We have really clean bathrooms and seeing things like this is way out of the norm. A student fortunately came and let her know which is when we immediately called the police and started working on things from our end. We had a staff meeting after school to talk about it and then we had communication ready to go for parents right after that.

So what time exactly did you hear about it?

It was sometime after 1 o’clock, 1:15 p.m. or something like that. When something like that happens, and I don’t know if I – I am gonna say this – I’m not gonna put a year on this but let’s just say 20 years ago, we see that, we wipe it off and say ‘whatever’. We can’t do that any more. We have to take everything seriously and even though this is not part of our culture nor part of our community values and there’s no other corroborating evidence or anything to make it more credible than writing on a wall, we have to take it seriously because the consequences and the stakes are so high if we don’t.

So you mean 20 years ago, it wouldn’t have been realistic that someone would come into school with a gun?

Unfortunately it was more realistic 20 years ago than 20 years prior to that. I think the last 10 have certainly just solidified how horrific these things are whenever they occur. We have to prepare for that, be transparent about that, and inform folks whenever something like this happens.

You came out with the statement that this is not a credible threat as far as you can tell. That’s based on lack of other information?

We would do a threat assessment. To do that we would talk to our police first of all. Something like this is really important to not handle alone. We have a great relationship with the police. We consulted with them. I consulted with a colleague who works in a much larger district in Alaska to give the facts and get their response. They’re much more used to doing this in other places than here. Haines is nuanced, which is why we’ve definitely erred on the side of transparency. We’re gonna let parents know as soon as we have as much information as we have.

I know it’s an active ongoing investigation, but can you say what surveillance footage you have been looking at?

We have 27 security cameras in the facility and we’re in the process of getting a hardlock system, which is the buzz in buzz out – in fact this weekend that’s gonna be finished – but on all of those cameras, there are cameras at our entrances. So we have about 35 cameras that can see a wide swath of the building. They’re not in private places like bathrooms or even classrooms. They’re in all the public places like hallways, open areas, cafeterias, outside, those kinds of things.

We have a memorandum of understanding with the Haines Borough that in a crisis they can use our security cameras, so if we have an emergency, they have remote access. They’re not gonna be looking at it on a day to day basis, that would be problematic, but in an emergency they can. They’ve got keys and they’ve got access to be able to enter the facility in an emergency. We implemented an anonymous reporting app called Stop It that we’ve continued to communicate with parents about. Our staff has undergone ALICE training which is the run, hide, fight training that’s important. We have a lockdown feature called SchoolGuard that any staff member can trigger a lockdown if they see a crisis and it will go to every single phone of our staff so that we know when there’s an emergency or a crisis. Our new lock system will automatically at the click of a button from my phone and others that we can trigger lockdowns physically of all of our doors. So we’ve really worked hard and spent a lot of time and energy on school safety, while at the same time trying to maintain our Haines culture, community involvement, and the safe feeling we have. We don’t want to feel like a fortress. Uvalde taught a lot of lessons I’d say.

Based on what you know so far, do you believe it was a student who made the graffitti?

Yes, I do. Fortunately some of the things we’ve done today is gone in to sweep the bathrooms to see if there’s any additional in there. Our bathrooms are shockingly clean. When you go in, you don’t see writing in it so it stands out. When a student reported it, that tells us that in all likelihood it had been made fairly recently. Some places you wouldn’t know if it was the week before, the month before, the year before, but here, we’re confident that we’ve got a time frame that we can look at.

What has the response been from students? Does it feel like business as usual today?

For students who are here, it’s business as usual. We had some talking points that I gave out to teachers so that they could talk to the students. We know that routine is good. I feel like overall when you walk around today, it’s a supervised, safe environment with more supervision and police protection and those kinds of things to respond out of an abundance of caution.

Do you notice a difference in the tone of students?

This is not something we’re used to. I don’t ever want to get used to it, and I don’t think people who live in this community need to be ever used to it. I would say that – I don’t know – the kids frankly are a little more resilient than the adults. I think this is really hard for teachers, for staff, for parents. For everybody, but in particular for adults whose number one priority is the protection and safety of every single one of these children, especially the parents.

Have you heard from a lot of parents?

We’ve heard from some. One reason we were really transparent about this is so families could make their own risk assessment and if they didn’t feel comfortable – that’s okay. It’s okay if they want to keep their children home. We’re also setting a standard for how we’re going to respond to something like this. There always needs to be caution when you’re responding to a situation like this, whether it’s this or the anonymous bomb threat that you may have seen a month ago that went out to a lot of Alaska schools – we didn’t get one – I think on Monday over 1,000 schools in America got a bomb threat via email. Whatever you do, you’re setting your standard for how you’re gonna respond. For us, it’s gonna be responding in such a way that safety is number one, but also focus on resiliency and hopefully with common sense and, after making a threat assessment, trying to do what is best for kids. But also of transparency, because we want to let parents know.

I have two daughters – I would have them here today. My wife’s a teacher, she’s here today. I’m here today. That doesn’t mean it’s not really disturbing and difficult.

Do you have any number for how many student absences there are today compared to normal?

I don’t, but looking around today, I would say it’s probably 25% — I mean that’s a guess.

So a significant disruption?

Yes, that’s right. This is a significant disruption to people’s lives and their learning and into their feeling of safety in what is statistically the safest place a child can be. I think that’s why this is so difficult when something like that is shaken.

We don’t know anything about who did this, but in a lot of these cases there’s serious underlying mental health issues. What resources are you pointing students to?

We have an anonymous reporting app that we hope students utilize. Since we’ve utilized it since last year, most of the cases that have come to us – in fact every single one that I can think of – there’s been a few about bullying but probably 90% have been reports of students concerned about other students. In that regard, we have mental health support here that we’ll start out with to make sure they’re okay but then we’ll refer on to outside agencies. SEARHC has a lot of support. There are other agencies in the community that can help.

But youth in America right now are in a mental health crisis. Frankly, I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think it’s only the youth in America who reflect the adults in America. This is a hard time and there are so many things that need to be calmed down, have the temperature taken down. There are outside influences that I think are making it hard for a lot of people right now and kids are a barometer of that I think.

Author