REPULSE BAY - Staff and students at Tusarvik School in Repulse Bay went into lockdown on Sept. 28, something they had practised only two weeks ago.

The school, with 260 students and 18 staff in attendance, was in lockdown for seven hours after RCMP informed the school of a violent incident and then apparent standoff near the school building.

"We got a call from the police around 1:30 (p.m.) or so to ask us to go into lockdown," said principal Aubrey Bolt.

"There had been a fight between adults outside the school, a knife was involved, and one of the people involved in the fight barricaded himself in a house near the school and (allegedly) threatened to shoot people."

The fight took place on the street directly in front of the school, Bolt said, and the house was not far away. The school swiftly went into lockdown, meaning the students go into their classrooms with the teachers, lock the doors, and keep them shut.

The students weren't given details about what was going on. "Basically we said that there were no intruders in the school but according to the police it wasn't safe to go outside," Bolt said. She added many found out what was happening by going on the Internet in their classrooms.

"Some students knew the people that were involved and some being related - and it's a small community everybody knows everybody - so some kids were a little bit upset but nobody was really hysterical or anything like that."

School staff continued regular classes as best they could without leaving the classrooms until 3:30 p.m., at which point teachers began showing movies, playing games or telling stories to their students to pass the time.

The school is fairly well-stocked with food for its breakfast program, Bolt said, and so the kids were given three rounds of snacks like fruit cups, pudding cups and granola bars during the extra-long day.

"By eight o'clock it was getting to be a very long day and the smaller kids were getting tired and some were crying, particularly the kindergartens and grade ones. We were hoping it was going to be over sooner rather than later but we were prepared for the long run if we had to stay over night," Bolt explained.

By 8:30 p.m. the school got the call from the RCMP that it was safe to go home. Parents came to pick up their children and teachers arranged for older students to walk home the younger children if their parents couldn't come. Mayor Donat Milortok said the rest of the community shut down as well for the duration.

"We had quite a long day with it yesterday," he said on Wednesday. "But it's all right, we're OK, everybody's OK."

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