West Fargo School District Explains String of Lockdowns at Sheyenne High

Three lockdowns happened over the past seven days

WEST FARGO, N.D. — The West Fargo School District is clarifying what happened during a string of lockdowns at Sheyenne High School.

All three lockdowns over the past seven days were administrative lockdowns, not human threat lockdowns.

“In administrative lockdowns, there’s typically no danger to students or staff at any time, especially in buildings as large as West Fargo’s administrative lockdown team, lockdowns happen frequently,” superintendent Beth Slette said.

Administrative lockdowns are used to clear hallways when emergency responders need to come through.

Human threat lockdowns are in response to someone entering the school to do harm.

The district says first two lockdowns on Dec. 12 and 18 were in response to a student who had an anxiety attack who needed medical attention.

“At no time during either of these two separate events were students or staff in danger,” Slette said.

The lockdown today happened after two students got in a fight and one of them had a seizure. Information has been turned over to police and charges are pending.

“I think our next conversations need to be working with our students to help get help rather than taking recording of an incident and laughing about it that they would seek help,” Slette said.

“We tell them to put the school in administrative lockdown, so that’s why we use that term, then we email teachers that it’s medical or whatever the case may be, then we give updates… because we don’t want 1,500 students passing in between classes and the privacy of the student is no longer guaranteed,” Pam Cronin, principal of Sheyenne High School, said.

Some parents say they were worried when they first heard the school was in lockdown, but are glad there was no danger.

The school district wants to remind people the holiday season is a stressful time for some students who are going through personal struggles like family conflicts, addiction or abuse.

“There are students in our schools who actually dread winter break because of these factors. Please keep in mind not every person may be looking forward to a break,” Slette said.

“Our partnership with the school district is extremely important and that’s why we have school resource officers, and it’s our job to make sure students once they’re in school are safe,” Chief Heith Janke of the West Fargo Police Department said.

The classification of administrative lockdowns and human threat lockdowns are used in 14 school districts that make up the Cass Clay unified school response team.