On Friday morning, students at Vernon’s Harwood Elementary were kept off the fields or indoors after over 50 needles turned up on school property.
“It was disgusting and disheartening. I think it is an isolated incident though,” said Brianne Rempel, president of Harwood’s parent advisory council.
In a letter to parents, the principal described the precautions the school took to keep students safe.
“Our staff scoured the entire grounds, parking lot entrances, parking lot and back alley prior to 8:00 a.m.. We kept students off of the grass and playground equipment area and only let them stay on the asphalt until the morning bell,” wrote Principal Lance Johnson.
“We kept students in at recess as well, as I wanted our school district maintenance staff to have enough time to complete a more thorough check of the entire school property.”
Rempel said school officials did a “fantastic job” handling the incident.
One school district staff member said none of the needles had been used. Vernon’s bylaw department said it is rare but not unheard-of for staff to find large numbers of unused needles around the city.
“In some cases, people may stash them in locations for future use,” said Clint Kanester, the city’s manager of protective services.
However, there are still unanswered questions about who discarded the needles on school property and why.
“From what I understand, they were dispersed around the field… so this is quite a peculiar event. I’m not really understanding, other than child endangerment, what the reason for this would be,” parent Evan Drury said.
Kanester said finding needles around Vernon has become more common in the last two years.
“It seems like injectables are the current drug of choice whereas previously it was crack cocaine. Then we would find pipes and tubing and things that they could use for that. Now we are finding certainly more needles than we ever have in the past,” Kanester said.
Drury said he also came across needles at the school playground last fall and thinks local drug users should clean up after themselves.
“If somebody is choosing to use injectable drugs or anything of that nature, please take the effort and put your garbage in the garbage, don’t strew it around where it can hurt kids. This doesn’t involve them and it shouldn’t be a concern for them.”
No one from the school district was available for an on-camera interview on Monday.
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