Kid brought gun to school

[Kjs]

Oh my. I came home from work on Tuesday night and there was a letter on the counter stating that the school was letting the parents know that the previous day a student brought a gun to school and showed several students. He was reported and was arrested.

This was at the large district school. difficult child goes to a small school, but takes one class (last class) at this district school.

Yesterday in the paper there was a big article. He was a 15 year old boy. Brought a small pistol. Showed many students and made the comment, "now we can rule the school"

He was arrested. The gun was not loaded and they found no amunition.


This is what really gets me. The school said they did NOT lock down the school because it was close to dismissal time.

OK... Lets put 3000 kids in the hallway at dismissal time and a kid with a gun. They did not know the gun was not loaded. They did not know that until they arrested him. They put all these kids and teachers in danger. Wow...I am really upset about that.

 

[muttmeister]

I agree that it sounds scary and maybe they didn't handle it right but mainly I'm sitting here thinking how old I am because when I was in high school (I graduated in 1965)almost every kid had a gun rack with a gun or two in the back window if his/her pick up. There were quite a few nights when we went hunting after school. Times do change!

 

[DammitJanet]

MM....until a few years ago...right before Columbine, here you would have found the same thing. All the pickups have gun racks and now you have to make darn tooting you have swapped out your rifles and shotguns for fishing poles before you go pick up junior.

 

[susiestar]

I graduated in 1987 and my high school handbook has the directions that guns must all be kept locked in the gun rack in your vehicle. I had more classmates than not who had guns in their cars. 1 or 2 bbrought them in and they were found and the guns were kept in the principal's office until a parent picked them up. Sadly, the change is one that is very much needed.

We live in a time where impulse control is at rock bottom and seems to be not valued. Where people play violent games until they think the violence is funny and those who are bullied or mentally ill have taken weapons to places that should be safe.

I hope that difficult child is not terribly upset by this. I also hope that the school can make wiser decisions in the future.

Many hugs and prayers for your family's continued safety.

 

[Abbey]

We had gun racks as well during HS. Native Americans were allowed to carry knives as it was a cultural things. Non Indians could not. Oddly enough one of my first encounters with a difficult child was my first year of teaching. One of my Indian students had a really bad day. He stayed after school and literally put the knife to my neck while I was alone in an outer building of the school. I had good enough relationship with the kid that I was able to talk him out of being so stupid. Even more odd is *I* was the one who went to court to petition for him to remain in school. Bad home life, alcoholic parent, very transient, etc. He stayed in school and ended up being one of the most respectful young man I've ever encountered.

The only other weapons incident was when I was teaching drop out prevention in Florida. The sweetest, most kind and quiet 11 year old brought a gun to school in a gym bag. He had been showing it to the other students ALL DAY. I have a very firm policy with students that if they have something they know they should disclose, but are afraid to because of peer pressure to leave me a note in my mailbox. (I had the cutest little mailbox that I toted all around the country.) They don't have to sign it, but it's pretty easy to tell who wrote the note. So that day I check my mailbox towards the end of the day and there is a note that says, "Jamal has a gun in his gym bag."

Now, Jamal is about 3 feet from me and I see the bag. We had the old school intercoms so I calmly went over to it and asked for the principal to come to my room as I needed to use the restroom. I waited by the door for what seemed like forever and the principal comes. He was pretty irritated. I tell him about the note and his mood quickly changed. He ran back and got a few other male teachers, came back and walked up to this poor kid. They grabbed his bag and the kid absolutely broke down.

Ultimately it was found out that it was not his gun, but his older brother's gun that he pressured to take with him on the bus as one of his friends was going to turn him in if he brought it. I was not able to save Jamal from returning to school. He was arrested and went to juvie. Oddly enough it ended up being a good learning experience for the rest of my motley crew...think about your choices. Poor Jamal wouldn't have killed a fly and they all knew it. He was allowed to return to school 18 months later...in the same grade. Yeah, that is setting him up for success.

They did not shut down the school during that incident as well.

Abbey

 

[DammitJanet]

Can you even imagine this going on today?

On the last day of 7th grade, the bus driver allowed us all to bring water guns or squirt bottles to school and fill them up in the restrooms at the end of the day and we could have a water fight on the bus on the way home.

In todays world, every darn one of us would be arrested for bringing a weapon to school. Instead it was a reward for being good kids. LOL.

 

[susiestar]

Janet, I could see some of our bus drivers doing this. And it would be fine as long as the water guns were brightly colored and not colored like real guns.

Our little "wanna be a city" town (technically meets criteria for a small city but still acts much like a small town has a school district still run by common sense. Mostly. We don't have much zero tolerance. The WHY is still as important as the what. Just recently a child was stealing other kids lunches. Sometimes 4-5 a day. Many schools are starting zero tolerance for stealing around here. Not ours.

The teacher asked the boy why he was taking so many lunches. Of course his folks were poor, but his parents were spending the weekends out partying and not coming home for a couple of days at a time. He was the oldest and had a younger sib - and their parents usually left no food for the kids when they disappeared.

The child and his sister get free lunch and bfast and they get a backpack FULL of healthy food to take home on Friday.

They also are being monitored very closely by child services. On professional days/days with no school the teacher who found out about the problem has pizza delivered at lunch time. She and her husband own a pizza place. She does this for about 4 families at any given time. Even on snow days she makes sure someone delivers food to them. (She was thank you's teacher last year and is AMAZING!

So there ARE schools who let common sense stuff go on. But they also would have handled a gun differently.