VA- 6-YEAR-OLD is in custody after shooting teacher

[shotgun09]

Boy assaulted 2 staff members on day he shot Richneck Elem. teacher: Police

The playground and the parking lot of Richneck Elementary School remain closed this week as police investigate after a six-year-old student shot his teacher in a classroom earlier this month.

www.wtkr.com

Chief Drew tells News 3 the six-year-old assaulted two staff members on Jan. 6.
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"If there's any human services or child protective services case files or any interactions with the family, the same things with schools, we've asked for records to see if there are any behavioral issues," he said.

....

RSBM

Per Chief Drews quote above, I personally wonder just how cooperative these agencies are, as far as releasing records .
Could very well be why there has been no movement.

IMO, not one of them would be ( or are currently ) willing to "take the blame" for this travesty. They all may be complicit. MOO

 

[Stunned]

I believe the OP made a typo and didn't mean an actual gun cane, but that the report that he may have a gun, came before the child arrived at the school.

Unbelievable! IMO

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

RSBM

Per Chief Drews quote above, I personally wonder just how cooperative these agencies are, as far as releasing records .
Could very well be why there has been no movement.

IMO, not one of them would be ( or are currently ) willing to "take the blame" for this travesty. They all may be complicit. MOO

Good post. Given the age of the perpetrator, and the various agencies involved wanting to protect their interests, I'm beginning to think that we will not learn much about how and why this incident happened. Child Protective Services or whatever social service agency may have had prior contact with the child and/or his family isn't likely to share information publicly. Same goes for any psychiatric/psychological evaluation or diagnosis of the child won't be shared outside of a courtroom, if it ever comes to that. And, of course, the school district does not want to be held accountable for the shooting and will protect administrators and teachers who were in the building at the time of the incident. Plenty of CYA on all fronts, and it will take a while for any more information to become publicly available. JMO

 

[shotgun09]

Good post. Given the age of the perpetrator, and the various agencies involved wanting to protect their interests, I'm beginning to think that we will not learn much about how and why this incident happened. Child Protective Services or whatever social service agency may have had prior contact with the child and/or his family isn't likely to share information publicly. Same goes for any psychiatric/psychological evaluation or diagnosis of the child won't be shared outside of a courtroom, if it ever comes to that. And, of course, the school district does not want to be held accountable for the shooting and will protect administrators and teachers who were in the building at the time of the incident. Plenty of CYA on all fronts, and it will take a while for any more information to become publicly available. JMO

Absolutely!
MOO, We live in the land of CYA now, dontcha' know...
Abigail who? <s>
smh

 

[Simply Southern]

Been waiting for the Behavior Improvement Committee to come to the public attention. Worth much more research, IMO, this IS the reason a teacher was wounded.moo...

Newport News superintendent gives safety update in the wake of Richneck school shooting

Changes and additional resources are planned across the school division in the aftermath of a student shooting a teacher at Richneck Elementary School.

www.13newsnow.com

To help with student behavior, the superintendent has approved the hiring of six instructional behavior coaches, in addition to six that have already been hired.
"Behavior coaches assist teachers in the classroom to address unwanted student behaviors and develop classroom plans to improve student behavior," Parker said.
Parker noted that the school division has already implemented this year a Student Behavior Contract for the first incident of an act of physical aggression, along with a Behavior Improvement Contract to create a procedure that would allow a suspended student to be readmitted to school. Parker said in addition to these tools, a Behavior Monitoring Plan may be created that would allow a behavior coach to monitor the student.
...
Parker noted that the school division has already implemented this year a Student Behavior Contract for the first incident of an act of physical aggression, along with a Behavior Improvement Contract to create a procedure that would allow a suspended student to be readmitted to school. Parker said in addition to these tools, a Behavior Monitoring Plan may be created that would allow a behavior coach to monitor the student.

 

[Simply Southern]

Don't know how to interpret the bolded statement, "visitors to be screened". I take that as visitors not students will be using the metal detectors.

Newport News superintendent gives safety update in the wake of Richneck school shooting

Changes and additional resources are planned across the school division in the aftermath of a student shooting a teacher at Richneck Elementary School.

www.13newsnow.com

secured the necessary support from our City Council to purchase the metal detection technology that will enable every visitor to be screened as they enter every school in our division," Parker said, adding that 90 individual door units have been ordered and will be distributed to each school. After training, they will be used daily.

 

[Simply Southern]

Hum....just speculating, Could the Behavior Coach have perform the search? AMHO...

 

[Simply Southern]

Hundreds of parents, teachers convene to express safety concerns following Richneck Elementary shooting

Community members packed the boardroom on Tuesday night to the point that it forced staff members to open up an overflow room and cancel the rest of the items on the agenda.

www.wtvr.com

In their three minutes of speaking to the school board, teachers expressed what they believe needs to change in order for safety in the district to improve. Many said they believe a lack of accountability in discipline is creating unsafe environments.

"We have failed our students under the guise of grace, under the guise of showing grace, and this grace has turned into enabling. We have failed our students,” one teacher added.

Others shared how they feel disciplinary incidents and concerns aren't being listened to or properly reported. One teacher received a loud round of applause from fellow educators after she said teachers know that the number of disciplinary incidents is on the decline because these incidents are not always officially reported

 

[Simply Southern]

Two different views...

Researchers urge against 'knee-jerk' reactions in response to Richneck Elem. shooting

Newport News Police say a six-year-old allegedly shot Abigail Zwerner, a 25-year-old teacher, during the school day on January 6.

www.wtvr.com

Those metal detectors aren't stopping anyone," said Jim Freeman, the director of the Social Movement Support Lab. "Adding metal detectors will have long-term psychological impacts on children, as young as five years old."

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Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist with the University of Virginia, worries....
...

"I worry for the six-year-olds in your community. The six-year-olds in your community are now at risk because some of them are going to say something inappropriate about violence. One of them may point their finger like a gun and go 'pow pow' or make a drawing of a gun. And those students are going to come under great scrutiny and you want to be careful that you don't engage in a kind of knee-jerk reaction to removing that student from the school in the name of safety and the name of prevention in a misguided way," Cornell said.

.....
National Center for Prevention of Community Violence Executive Director Bobby Kipper said schools need to act quickly when a child may act out in school or display signs, they might become a threat
to themselves or others.

"Schools don't invent violence, they have to deal with it," Kipper said. "Behavior without some kind of services or consequences is permission to go to the next level. And I think we need to provide those services and we need to mitigate that behavior at a much earlier level for our students, not only in our schools but in our community."

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

Shooting by 6-year-old raises complex cultural questions

Even in a country where gun violence is commonplace, the story of a small boy with a gun is reverberating in a big way.

apnews.com

He was 6, in his first-grade class in Newport News, Virginia. He pointed a handgun at his teacher, police say, and then he pulled the trigger. And across the nation, people ... didn’t quite know how to react.

Even in a country where gun violence is sadly commonplace, the story of a small boy with a gun is reverberating in a big way. There has been finger-pointing. Confusion. Floundering for answers. Mass grappling with deeply uncomfortable feelings. And questions: How could something like this possibly happen? Where in the national consciousness do we put it?

“It is almost impossible to wrap our minds around the fact that a 6-year-old first-grader brought a loaded handgun to school and shot a teacher,” Mayor Phillip Jones said that day, Jan. 6. “However, this is exactly what our community is grappling with today.”

It’s not just his community, though, and it wasn’t just that day. This is a country full of people who know exactly what they think about everything, and say so. Yet many are throwing their hands up at this. In a land awash in hot takes, it’s a head-scratcher. A heart-scratcher, even.

“I never thought elementary students being the shooter was a possibility we would ever see,” says Kendra Newton, a first-grade teacher in Florida...

 

[Stunned]

Hum....just speculating, Could the Behavior Coach have perform the search? AMHO...

My experiences with so called “Behavior Coaches “ was that they were hands off observers till someone was bleeding or on the floor and then they made matters worse. Useless, apsolutely useless.

 

[alusru91]

I hope this type of institution is available. My state of approximately 3.5 million people has no institution like this for children of any age. In my large city, a child like this would likely, hopefully, be placed in a foster setting, but often one would not be available that could accommodate a traumatized/violent child. Jmo

 

[shotgun09]

Interesting statements in this ABC article, not seen before as far as I know..

Respectfully Snipped, Bolded and Underlined BM:

"The 25-year-old teacher, Abby Zwerner, was shot through the hand and into her stomach. She was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, but is now recovering. Authorities have said the 6-year-old's backpack was searched prior to the shooting after a fellow student said they saw a gun. No gun was found in the backpack. "

"Sypolt, who works as a special education teacher in another school district, noted that the shooting "didn't happen because Ms. Zwerner wasn't doing everything that she could to provide support to her students. This happened because a weapon was reported, behavior concerns were also reported, and the administration did not take them seriously." "

Parents vent frustration at school board after 6-year-old shoots teacher in Newport News, Virginia

Parents, teachers and community members shared frustrations with community leaders after the third shooting on Newport News school grounds in the last 18 months.

abcnews.go.com

 

[Ontario Mom]

Interesting statements in this ABC article, not seen before as far as I know..

Respectfully Snipped, Bolded and Underlined BM:

"The 25-year-old teacher, Abby Zwerner, was shot through the hand and into her stomach. She was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, but is now recovering. Authorities have said the 6-year-old's backpack was searched prior to the shooting after a fellow student said they saw a gun. No gun was found in the backpack. "

"Sypolt, who works as a special education teacher in another school district, noted that the shooting "didn't happen because Ms. Zwerner wasn't doing everything that she could to provide support to her students. This happened because a weapon was reported, behavior concerns were also reported, and the administration did not take them seriously." "

Parents vent frustration at school board after 6-year-old shoots teacher in Newport News, Virginia

Parents, teachers and community members shared frustrations with community leaders after the third shooting on Newport News school grounds in the last 18 months.

abcnews.go.com

I think you are correct, this is the first I'm learning that another student said they saw a gun.

When a child comes to a teacher and says "Billy has a gun in his back pack, I saw it" that should be the end of little Billy's normal routine at school that day. His bag, desk, cubby or any other area he had access to should have been thoroughly searched while he sat in the principle's office or somewhere else safe and supervised. In which case, the shooting would have been completely preventable.

jmo

 

[ColyH]

Two different views...

Researchers urge against 'knee-jerk' reactions in response to Richneck Elem. shooting

Newport News Police say a six-year-old allegedly shot Abigail Zwerner, a 25-year-old teacher, during the school day on January 6.

www.wtvr.com

Those metal detectors aren't stopping anyone," said Jim Freeman, the director of the Social Movement Support Lab. "Adding metal detectors will have long-term psychological impacts on children, as young as five years old."

....

Those metal detectors are not going to cause long term psychological impacts on children and even if it did cause any it won't be as severe as the psychological impact of a child seeing his friend murdered in front of him.

 

[Simply Southern]

Those metal detectors are not going to cause long term psychological impacts on children and even if it did cause any it won't be as severe as the psychological impact of a child seeing his friend murdered in front of him.

Moo...I think they got problems metal dectors won't fix. Note below, ones in the HS are NOT being used.

Dozens of Newport News parents and teachers speak out on school safety

Less than two weeks after a six-year-old student shot his teacher, more than 100 parents and teachers filled the auditorium at Tuesday night’s Newport News school board meeting, with safety i…

www.wavy.com

Snipped...
Tuesday Newport news School Board meeting, over 100 parents, students and teacher. 60 signed up to speak,the 3 mins. each.

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“Parents cussing at me thinking that they’re allowed to talk to me any kind of way,” said one teacher. “Kids talking to me any kind of way and I’m just supposed to deal with it. We’re tired,” said one teacher.
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Some questioned the effectiveness of metal detectors, asking who would man them. Others talked about the lack of support from administration when it comes to punishing bad behavior.
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Even students took the podium, some telling the board their high schools already have metal detectors but said they’ve only seen them used once and the rest of the time they sit in the gym and collect dust.

 

[shotgun09]

'I was really shocked': Teachers react after 6-year-old allegedly shoots teacher

Teachers speak out after a 6-year-old student reportedly shot a teacher at Richneck Elementary School last week.

www.goodmorningamerica.com

" Teachers across the U.S. have been leaving the profession in droves, and last fall, 45% of public schools reported they had at least one vacant teaching position, according to data from NCES.
Educators have cited stressors such as burnout, mental health struggles, school safety, low pay, funding cuts and a lack of respect as reasons many are leaving, or are considering leaving, the education field.

Marisa Palermo is also an elementary school teacher at a Connecticut public school and has been teaching for the last nine years. She said this year is the first time where she's considered the idea of leaving her profession, one that she loves. "

 

[Stunned]

I’ve been in many schools where the cameras have been broken for months. They are waiting for maintenance for weeks. Not safe!

 

[Simply Southern]

From today's, Today Show. This made me want to cry.

Also NBC evening news just did another clip from the meeting.

Parents sound off at Virginia school officials over teacher shooting

An emotional scene played out at a school board meeting in Newport News, Virginia, as parents expressed their fears and frustration over safety concerns following the shooting of a teacher by a six-year-old two weeks ago. NBC’s Catie Beck reports for TODAY.

www.today.com

An emotional scene played out at a school board meeting in Newport News, Virginia, as parents expressed their fears and frustration over safety concerns following the shooting of a teacher by a six-year-old two weeks ago. NBC’s Catie Beck reports for TODAY.

 

[Ladyotm]

School official learned 6-year-old might have weapon before shooting, superintendent says

It was a typo. There are reports that admin was informed he may have a gun prior to his arriving at school. See attached article.