Tumbler Ridge Students Return to Class in New Buildings 2 Weeks After Mass Shooting

Students in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., have begun returning to classes, just over two weeks after a mass shooting killed five young students and one teacher.

The town’s secondary school is now operating on the grounds of the elementary school in portables. The two schools are scheduled to have staggered start, break, and end times in order to help manage the flow of students.

The school district website said elementary students would return to shortened classes on Feb. 26 and 27 and go back to regularly scheduled classes on March 2. Secondary school students were invited to visit the portable classrooms Feb. 26 and go to one class the next day, before returning to a shortened schedule on March 2.

Peace River South School District Superintendent Christy Fennell wrote to families Feb. 13 saying that students at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School would not be expected to return to where the school shooting took place.

She wrote that “emotional and physical safety through a trauma informed lens” would be prioritized for returning students to classes.

The district’s update said that the schedule next week for secondary school students will go from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. but “may change based on needs.”

At a vigil held the evening of Feb. 13, B.C. Premier David Eby pledged that “not one of you will ever be forced to go back to that school.”

This was followed on Feb. 16 by the B.C. government announcing that portable classroom buildings were being installed for secondary school students. The new campus for the students on the grounds of the elementary school is about 1 kilometre away from Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.

The school district said a security company has been hired to keep watch around the Tumbler Ridge Elementary campus and said RCMP did a security review of the site. The district also added that a camera system is going to be installed on the campus and portables will have hand-held radios to ensure that any alarm is received instantaneously.

It noted that all doors on portables will stay locked at all times, along with elementary school doors staying locked during the day.

A district counselling team and two “safer school liaison” officers will also stay on site of the campus until spring break, according to the district.

Classes for elementary and secondary school students had been paused since the Feb. 10 mass shooting in the small town in northeastern B.C. that police say was carried out by 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar.

The shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after authorities arrived on scene at the shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, according to police, who added that the suspect’s mother and 11-year-old half-brother were also murdered by the suspect in a second shooting at a residence in the town.

Police say the suspect had a history of mental illness and said they had visited the suspect’s residence several times for reasons related to mental health and to secure firearms. They also noted the suspect had begun a gender transition from male to female about six years ago and dropped out of school four years ago.

The Tumbler Ridge school shooting is the second-deadliest in the country’s history. The deadliest occurred in 1989 at École Polytechnique in Montreal, where a gunman killed 14 individuals before later killing himself.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.