Scott Radley: A school shooting threat at Ancaster’s Bishop Tonnos highlights the ever-more-difficult job of being a parent

Chances are, the alarming message scrawled on a local high school's bathroom wall threatening a shooting this Friday was some not-so-bright student's idea of a joke. Some kid with more ink in his magic marker than functioning cells in his grey matter.

But what if it wasn't?

Police say the threatening message was discovered in a bathroom at Bishop Tonnos Secondary School in Ancaster on Friday. School administration contacted the police school liaison officer who investigated before the criminal investigation branch was brought in to handle the case. Parents were made aware of this and a second incident, in which a student was seen loading a BB gun in a video, on Monday.

In response to the threat, there will be uniformed officers at the school throughout the week and on that day. So it's not nothing.

Whether it's merely the ill-advised prank of a soon-to-be-expelled student whose teenage brain didn't really think this through or something darker and more ominous is only part of the story, though.

What do you do if you're a parent?

Do you send your kid to school that day or keep him or her home? Do you believe everything is OK or lean on the side of caution? Trust or fear?

Some will say even asking this is overreaction. Perhaps. Probably. But talking to a couple of Bishop Tonnos parents since they received the letter from the principal on Monday explaining the situation produced two very different reactions.

One said the school had done everything reasonable and was handling it well. They said if the police are looking after it, they aren't worried and they'd be sending their child to school on Friday without concern.

The other said the school should've warned everyone over the weekend given the message was discovered Friday, so they could've made a decision to keep their child home this week. Because what if the person behind the message was serious and decided to change their mind about the date? As for whether he wants his kid in class on Friday, he hasn't decided yet.

Is either wrong?

If you share the first parent's view - neither wanted their name used in a piece about this topic - you might be asking what message it sends to your impressionable son or daughter if you refuse to leave the house every time there's a risk of danger. Surely we have to carry on with our lives even when we're afraid of something. Pushing through scary situations is part of learning to succeed.

Plus, not having your kid show up would empower the scrawler and any others who might decide to do the same thing down the road.

But the other parent has a point, too, don't they? What if you send your kid to school that day and, well, what if? Heaven forbid something happens. It's too horrible to contemplate. But it's not like it's never happened. We just had Texas. Before that, Buffalo. Before that, innumerable others from Columbine to Sandy Hook. Even last week there was a threat in Toronto and Tuesday there were reports of a man with a gun near a school in Oakville.

In some way, it's the COVID scenario all over again cloaked in a completely different outfit. This one carrying the potential for more immediate harm, if true.

Some parents were terribly concerned about sending their children to school for much of the past two years because of the risk of transmission. The information they'd been given led them to worry.

Other parents had fewer fears about the virus itself since kids were generally affected less than older folks and they were way more concerned about the social, psychological and educational impact of their child not being there.

In that case and this one, there was an invisible threat with no easy answer.

Once upon a time, a note like this on the Bishop Tonnos bathroom wall might've landed someone a trip to the principal's office and a detention. Because nobody would've really believed it was serious. Not anymore.

This is 2022. It's a different world than many of us grew up in. The challenges feel greater. The decisions are harder. The information we're fed is endless and often confusing. The consequences of our choices seem more enormous.

Parenting was tough before. Some days it feels closer to impossible now.

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com