The four protocols and what each means for kids inside
Lockdown
Danger inside or at the school. Doors lock, students move to safe spots, windows covered.
Hold and secure
Police matter outside, unrelated to the school. Exterior doors lock, class carries on inside.
Shelter in place
Something in the air outside, like smoke or a gas leak. Everyone comes in and the building may be sealed.
Evacuation
The building itself is the risk, most often fire. Everyone moves out to an assembly area.
BC's Emergency Management Planning Guide sets out plain-language responses that districts including SD43 use, and it avoids code words so everyone knows what is happening. Four of them come up most often, and it helps to know the difference.
Lockdown is used when the danger is inside the building or immediately at it. Students and staff move to a specific area, exterior and classroom doors lock, and windows are covered. The guide names an active shooter or dangerous intruder as the situation it is for.
Hold and secure (the guide also calls it lockout) is used when there is a police situation outside the school that has nothing to do with it. Exterior doors lock and are monitored, but class continues inside and no one leaves. An active police incident in the neighbourhood is the trigger.
Shelter in place is for an environmental or airborne hazard, like a chemical spill or gas leak nearby, where leaving is more dangerous than staying. Everyone comes inside to safe zones, and for airborne hazards the building may be sealed. It can also cover a wild animal near the school, such as a cougar or bear.
Evacuation moves everyone out to an assembly area or alternate location. Fire is the most common reason, though a flood or bomb threat can also call for it.
Who activates a protocol
The principal or designate is in charge during an emergency, described in the provincial guide as the Site Incident Commander working alongside district staff and first responders. When the situation is a police matter outside the school, a hold and secure is placed at the request of police, who confirm when it is safe to lift it.
How and when you will hear from the district
SD43 names its own website as the official primary source and tells parents to look for a status banner at www.sd43.bc.ca and check there first (SD43 Emergency Information). For direct alerts the district uses School Messenger, which its technology director described as its first mass voice and text tool, sending messages to the landlines and cell phones of parents and guardians. Expect a voice call or text, and treat the website banner as the standing reference you can check anytime.
What to do, and what not to do
The instinct to drive straight to the school is the one to resist. SD43 follows a student release plan and reunification process rather than parents self-directing to the building. When emergency responders and the district's Emergency Operations Centre clear pickup, parents are notified and children may be released from the school, the grounds, or an alternate location.
The provincial guide describes a double-gated reunification: parents arrive at a check-in gate, do not enter, then move to a release gate to collect their child. Wait for notification, then go to the designated reunification site. Filling out the Student Emergency Release Form in advance, listing your child and the adults allowed to pick them up, keeps that handoff quick.
What the district's own data says about feeling safe
SD43's September 2025 Enhancing Student Learning report gives the district's own read: "While overall student safety ratings are strong, with 80% reporting feeling safe, 30% of Grade 11 students did not respond positively... The district will engage in the YDI in 2025-2026 to check this data again." Both halves matter. Most students report feeling safe, the district found a senior-grade number it wants to understand better, and it committed to re-checking it. That follow-up is the thing to watch for in the 2026-27 reporting.
The February 2026 incidents
On Wednesday February 4, 2026, around 12:25 p.m., Coquitlam RCMP received a report of an alleged threat against a school on Poirier Street, and affected schools went into hold and secure with officers on scene. More alleged threats followed into Thursday and Friday, and across Wednesday and Thursday eleven Tri-Cities schools were placed on hold and secure at various points.
The order at Centennial and Gleneagle was at the RCMP's request, and officers were present for hours before the district lifted it. RCMP later confirmed the incidents were connected. Insp. Todd Balaban told a press conference the students and staff of the district were safe, and credited the schools implementing their hold and secure protocols with letting officers quickly verify safety.