Cairine Wilson Secondary School (Ottawa)
Cairine Wilson Secondary School is an Ottawa-Carleton District School Board high school in Ottawa, Canada. It is the main English language school in the eastern suburb of Orleans. It is located on 975 Orleans Boulevard in the northern edge of the suburb, near the Ottawa River. The school opened in 1975. It was named after Cairine Wilson, Canada's first female Senator. The school is currently home to some 750 students. It is known as one of the stronger schools academically. It is also a strong sports schools. Its teams are known as the Wildcats.
On April 20, 2000, the first anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in the United States, Cairine Wilson became the site of one of the worst incidents of school violence in Canadian history. At the beginning of the lunch break, a fifteen-year-old student pulled out a steak knife and attacked a fellow student with whom he had been arguing. The victim fled, but his assailant caught up to him and stabbed him repeatedly in the back. In another hallway, he then attacked another student, cutting his head and back.
The attacked proceeded into the computer lab, cutting one girl's forehead, another boy's arm, and plunging the knife into an instructor's back. He then threw a computer monitor out of the window. The student was then calmed down by the school's principal, Mike Jordan, who was much praised, and surrendered the weapon minutes after the incident began. The attacker, who was also wounded, was placed in custody and taken to hospital.
The incident shocked all. Cairine Wilson had no history of school violence and such events are rare in Canada. Many praised Canada's gun control laws comparing what damage could have occurred if the student had access to a gun. Eventually, all five victims fully recovered. The school was closed for five days after the incident. The assailant and his victims accepted to pursue the collaborative justice approach, and he was given a relatively light sentence of six months in closed custody, followed by eighteen months of open custody and then twelve months probation.
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Categories: Ottawa schools