“All I know is that I don’t know nothing.”
That’s Stu Bell. He’s got two kids in school and a third in preschool, and for several months took care of Kylie Smith, who became a de facto part of the Bell family.
I asked him what his thoughts were on the upcoming school year. “It’s hard, and it’s confusing, and I don’t fully understand what my kids are going through,” says Bell. “I hardly understand what I’m going through myself. The plan? Let them lead. My teens are old enough now to understand the value of good grades in high school. I am hopeful they understand the value of their mental health and how to advocate for their individual needs.”
He says his plan has always been to give them the groundwork for a happy and productive future, whatever that means. “But reaching that goal looks different now as they’ve survived something few people will ever understand.
“So with open communication, I’m letting them decide their path. If this new school set-up isn’t working out for them, then we’ll discuss options. But they have to be the ones to decide what’s going to be best for them. Not a position I would’ve imagined myself taking a year ago, but things are different now.”
Going back to school this year hits different. Never mind that the high school building is now little more than a slowly diminishing pile of rubble, there is still a sense of foreboding among certain people of the town. While there are still people who think rebuilding the school is a waste of money, there’s also teens and even staff who are struggling to return despite the new location.
Most of these people, it should be noted, don’t have kids in school.
How many kids do return won’t be known officially for a few weeks, when the official numbers are reported to the School District 59 Board, but there were many who found the thought of returning to school last year too much. For the 2025–26 year, there were 191 students registered.
Bell is not the only one approaching the new school cautiously. Tara Dusseault’s youngest is starting kindergarten. She says she’s been uneasy about the kids going back to school. “We are thinking of moving. There’s other reasons, but the shooting is definitely a factor. With the lack mental health and lack of general practitioners, one could easily worry that another occurrence is inevitable unless the system and services available are upgraded.”
She says the perpetrator of the shooting is not the only person in town struggling with mental health issues. Her family moved to Tumbler Ridge, thinking that a smaller community would be better, but now feel like she was “naive to believe that a smaller community would mean safer.” So she’s toying with the idea of moving again. “Aside from the social aspect public education offers, there aren’t many felt pros for the school year beginning again.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
