Police sources said the school has been closed since Monday amid reports of the death threats against teachers. A report by RJR suggested that at least one teacher resigned from the school following the incident.However, director of the Ministry of Education’s Region Five, Susan Nelson-Smith said she was not aware of any resignations from the school.

“The current status is that the school is in session with the online teacher engagement of the students at all grade levels until further notice. The [Ministry of Education and Youth] has not received any official notice of resignation from any member of staff. We continue to monitor the situation in the best interest of the staff and students,” Nelson-Smith said on Tuesday.On Monday, head of the St Elizabeth police, Superintendent Coleridge Minto said an investigation is ongoing to find the source of threats.

“I want to appeal to persons in the area to refrain from interfering with any form of witness or any person connected to this investigation. The investigation is advanced, the weapon was seized and has been sent to our forensic lab for testing. Further updates will be provided later,” Minto said.

In the meantime, he urged parents to search the bags of their children before school.

“Search their bags to ensure that guns, knives, or any form of weapons or contraband are not being brought into the school compounds. The school is a place of teaching and learning, and we certainly want for all our students, our teachers, principals and staff to be safe in that environment.

“This highlights the challenge and the problems that we face when our children are exposed to things like guns in our communities,” he said.

The child’s 32-year-old father, who was detained last Thursday, was released from police custody on Monday. A highly placed police source said the man was previously charged in relation to the seizure of a firearm in 2015.

The primary school, which is located on the fringes of the Cockpit Country, has been at the centre of a police investigation since the weapon was found in the grade one student’s bag.The Jamaica Observer was told that mid-morning last Thursday the police, acting on intelligence, went to the school in a remote section of St Elizabeth, near the border with St James, when they searched the child’s bag and found the weapon.The constabulary posted a photo of the weapon on its social media platforms last Thursday afternoon. The gun had the initials JE engraved on it.The Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA), in a statement last Friday, said: “The seven-year-old St Elizabeth boy who was found in possession of a sub-machine gun on September 12 has now been safeguarded into the care of the agency, along with his siblings.”