By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

speculation creates confusion

‘Counter-productive’ social media chat fueled rumours during Eastview Middle School incident: School District

Jun 14, 2019 | 11:15 AM

Those in the know are warning the greater school community to be extra careful when it comes to using social media during incidents like the one this week at Eastview Middle School.

Three youth have been arrested in connection to the situation which saw the school put under lockdown on Tuesday afternoon. RCMP also say that a replica firearm was located at the scene.

Officials say social media played a role in spreading misinformation about the incident – before, during and after.

“We actually encourage students not to engage in texting or social media during something like a lockdown because that in and of itself can pose a threat in terms of providing details or creating noise and sound,” says Bruce Buruma, Director of Community Relations, Red Deer Public Schools.

“We know there’s an urge for students to do that, to touch base with parents, and we fully understand that but we try in that situation to provide as much information as we can through a system called School Messenger. That sends out a variety of messages through text, email and voice — we relied on text messaging here — to get the details we could provide out to parents. That was based on our work with RCMP.”

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Buruma also notes several posts which have popped up on social media since the incident concluded have caused undue anxiety and stress for families.

“There are some legal implications that go with that, but they also aren’t conducive to trying to get things taken care of in the proper legal and effective means,” he adds. “If there was any threat to the safety of students and staff, we would not have had school.”

Jo Phillips with Jo(e) Social Media Inc. says the biggest challenge is peoples’ desire for information to be handed to them immediately.

“When stuff like this happens, it’s essential that the people who are in charge make sure they are communicating well, which we saw happen, and then it’s important that parents specifically don’t add their two cents or opinions,” she says.

“Whenever something like this happens, stay out of it, stay offline, because that’s not helpful and you actually create a bigger challenge for police and the communicators in the school. By getting over-dramatic is actually creating another problem for them and we need them focusing in on the kids when this stuff happens.”

Red Deer Public Schools shared updates via email/text every 10-15 minutes while Tuesday’s events were unfolding.

The three youth charged are to appear in court on June 27.