BREAKING Police investigating shooting outside of Drake's Bridle Path mansion: source
Toronto police are investigating a shooting that took place outside of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion early Tuesday morning, a source tells CP24.
An alarm blared and lights flashed as a heavily armed assailant stalked the hallways of The Covenant School.
Surveillance footage of the shooting Monday at the private Christian school in Nashville showed many familiar security measures, including the double set of locked glass doors the killer shot their way through before fatally shooting three children and three school employees.
"It's just next to impossible to stop someone" coming through that door with a high-powered weapon, said George Grant, a leader with the Nashville Presbytery, which is connected with the school. Grant said the presbytery doesn't have a formal security program for its churches and schools but that members have worked together to share best practices and improve safety.
Around the U.S., private schools generally do not face as many requirements as public schools for developing security plans. In Tennessee, laws requiring schools to develop and submit safety plans do not apply to private schools, an emailed statement from the state Department of Education said.
Private schools also sometimes lack access to government programs to bolster security, though private schools in some states are eligible for state money to bolster security with staff, equipment and technology. Some federal grants also are available to private schools for security aid.
Generally, private schools don't have access to the police many public schools have assigned to their campuses, said Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. He said some private schools have arranged to hire recently retired officers.
"I would imagine after this horrific situation in Nashville that there may be more attempts by private schools to try to not only bolster security but to get school resource officers."
Still, amid widespread concerns about mass shootings, experts say private schools have invested similarly to public schools in violence prevention.
Private schools were among institutions that invested most heavily in security in the aftermath of the 2012 shooting that killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Today, private schools have some of the highest-paid security specialists, including retired federal agents, said Michael Dorn, who has been involved in assessing security at thousands of schools as executive director of Safe Havens International, a nonprofit school safety center.
Security protocols for private schools are similar to those for public schools, but they are more tailored to each school's location and circumstances, said Myra McGovern of the National Association of Independent Schools.
Security such as metal detectors may not be as visible at private schools, which also have considerations including boarding students and, in some cases, the children of heads of state to look after, she said.
"Attention to security is similar, but the way that it manifests is perhaps different," McGovern said.
The quality of safety plans for private schools also varies widely, as it does for public schools, Dorn said.
"We see schools that are pretty behind and some that are exceptional," he said.
In Tennessee, an executive order last year by Gov. Bill Lee on school safety measures directed the state to conduct a report on the use of armed guards in nonpublic schools and assess their need for active-shooter training.
Most U.S. school systems conduct active-shooter and lockdown trainings, and the Nashville school had in fact undergone active-shooter training in 2022, which prevented further loss of life during Monday's shooting, city police spokesperson Brooke Reese said.
Private or not, shootings are more common at middle and high schools than at elementary schools like Covenant, which are less likely to have assigned security officers. Educators also are wary of unsettling young learners with more heavy-handed security measures.
The Covenant School has about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade. The school and the Covenant Presbyterian Church are connected with the Nashville Presbytery, which includes congregations in the Presbyterian Church in America, across Middle Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky.
"Over the last several years, most of our churches have undergone training and have really scrutinized their security arrangements," said Grant, the immediate past moderator for the Nashville Presbytery. "It's not an official sort of presbytery-wide initiative, but it has just sort of grown out of relationships."
Grant said Franklin Classical School, a school under the spiritual oversight of his church, Parish Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee, has lockdown procedures and security codes in place. The school always has a former police officer on site when school is in session. It is unknown whether The Covenant School had a security officer.
Grant said his church's security team has called for a review of security protocols and already had training planned for the week after Easter.
"This is just a good reminder that we live in a broken, fallen world," he said. "And we need to be vigilant to care for one another as best we can."
------ Ma reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press writers Jonathan Mattise in Nashville and Michael Melia in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.
The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Toronto police are investigating a shooting that took place outside of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion early Tuesday morning, a source tells CP24.
Sporting mullets, Canadian Armed Forces officer cadets placed second in an annual military skills competition in the U.S.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
The Met Gala and its fashionista A-listers on Monday included Jennifer Lopez, Zendaya and a parade of others in a swirl of flora and fauna looks on a green-tinged carpet lined by live foliage.
The rumours are true: Vegetables aren't real — that is, in botany, anyway. While the term fruit is recognized botanically as anything that contains a seed or seeds, vegetable is actually a broad umbrella term.
Noelia Voigt, who was crowned Miss USA in November 2023, has announced she is resigning from her role, saying the decision is in the best interest of her mental health.
Sure, she was a royal princess and all. But there’s no way Sleeping Beauty — either before or after her nap — ever had quite the fabulous wardrobe that’s been assembled at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Donald Trump returns to the hush money trial Tuesday facing a threat of jail time for additional gag order violations as prosecutors gear up to summon big-name witnesses including porn actor Stormy Daniels.
Israeli tanks seized control of Gaza's vital Rafah border crossing on Tuesday as Israel brushed off urgent warnings from close allies and moved into the southern city even as cease-fire negotiations with Hamas remained on a knife's edge.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.