Anchorage Daily News

A ninth-grade girl bowled over and slightly injured the school principal while trying to hurt another student in Emmonak on Wednesday -- prompting school officials to lock students in classrooms for their own safety.

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The next day, many parents kept their kids home and called for a meeting with school district officials in hopes of preventing any future violence. That meeting came Friday, gathering hundreds of people in the Yukon River village of roughly 800.

At the meeting, kids who saw their principal with his arm in a sling were assured that they were safe and everything was OK, said principal Bill Schildbach.

"Part of any sort of healing process -- it's always good to sit down and talk about what's happening, so that's what everybody does."

The school district said no weapons were involved and no students were hurt. But news of the lockdown -- which lasted until the end of the school day Wednesday as parents escorted students home -- put parents on alert.

Members of the local advisory school board said the latest lockdown was the third since the beginning of the school year, an alarming trend.

It didn't help that the news came amid reports of school shootings around the country.

"A lockdown to the parents in our community is what they see on TV, and that's pretty scary," said Dora C. Moore, an advisory school board member and parent who said violence at the local school appeared to be escalating.

Len Hootch is on the advisory board too. She has three kids at the school and said lockdowns are not part of the culture in Emmonak.

"When I first heard that word, I thought of danger, something has happened at the school that is not safe," she said.

Emmonak is one of 11 schools in the Lower Yukon School District, which is headquartered in Mountain Village. Parents said the district superintendent and the chairman of the school board visited the town for Friday's meeting.

Assistant Superintendent Rich Patton said there are maybe four or five lockdowns a year districtwide. "Essentially that keeps the students in the building and locks the outside doors and limits entry," he said.

The latest trouble began Wednesday. Schildbach said a high school student was chasing another student when he stepped in. The pursuing girl ran into Schildbach, knocking him down.

"Just some scratches," he said. "And being an old guy I don't bounce off the floor like I used to."

The girl was angry about being stopped, Schildbach said. He declined to name the student or say exactly what happened next, except that students were locked in and the girl eventually left the school.

As for the student, Patton said, "I think it's fair to say appropriate disciplinary action was taken."

The lockdown was a precaution in a remote village where troopers or village police are not always available to help at the school, Schildbach said. "I have to do something preventative to make sure everybody's safe, because that's all I got."

A spokeswoman for Alaska State Troopers said Friday that troopers are investigating the incident.

Walter Kloepfer is an English teacher at the school and a former city manager for Emmonak. He's also on the city council, and said the issue of local police availability is already an agenda item at the next council meeting.

He said the school had a shorter lockdown about two weeks earlier. "(It) had to do with a student getting rude and losing their temper and pushing their teacher," he said.

Asked if it was the same student as the one who ran into the principal Wednesday, Kloepfer said it was.

He guessed that roughly half the people in town appeared at Friday's meeting. "They discussed different ways that kids can get help or adults, even, can get help," he said.

Find Kyle Hopkins' political blog online at adn.com/alaskapolitics or call him at 257-4334.