Okotoks RCMP and the Foothills School Division have provided an update following the announcement of the closure of Okotoks Junior High School on Thursday.

According to RCMP around 4:40 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, they were notified by the school's principal Leah Kingston that a student had informed her they'd overheard a conversation between other students where a threat was made. Kingston then notified RCMP and the school division's administrators. This resulted in the decision to close the school as a precautionary measure as the investigation takes place by Okotoks RCMP's General Investigation Section.

Cpl. Curtis Peters, spokesperson for the RCMP's Southern Alberta district, says the decision to only close Okotoks Junior High School and not others is because it was a targeted incident.

"The nature of this threat was specific to this particular school, we don't have any reason to believe the threat extends to other schools in the area, other school divisions, or anything like that."

RCMP are refraining from providing details to protect the integrity of their investigation but will say it was not a bomb threat.

Peters says residents will notice an increase in police presence around town while they investigate and may have noticed the K9 unit at the school.

"The K9 officer was at the school earlier today, it was brought in to do a perimeter search at the school as well as search inside the school to make sure there wasn't any people or potential threats in the school... no this was not a bomb threat, the dog was just brought in as one more tool in our tool belt to help us investigate."

Parents were notified of the school's closure shortly after 6 p.m. Wednesday night through FSD's automated system which alerts families by phone and email. The division also posted the closure through social media and contacted local media to relay the message.

John Bailey, superintendent of FSD, says these types of threats are unheard of to him in the division.

"This is a very rare occurrence for us in schools to have a threat against the safety of staff and or students," he says. "In fact, I've been in the division for two and a half years and this is the first time this kind of level of threat has come up."

Bailey says there was no activity in the school that took place prior to the incident that would've alluded to it taking place.

The school division will be providing counselling for students and staff when the school reopens.

Bailey says it's too early to say when classes will resume at Okotoks Junior High but that there's potential for it to reopen on Friday.

Parents will be notified through FSD's automated system once a decision has been made on the school's definite reopening.