Teacher shot at Newport News elementary school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many lives were put at risk and any genuine attempt at intervention was further delayed, I just don't understand WHY?

There are a lot of admins who would rather lose a good teacher than kick out a violent student. Churn and burn through teachers who have to deal with the violent kid, but you can brag that you reduced suspensions by 95% when you apply for a job with the DOE.

I would love to see climate surveys of this school and the district before the shooting. I'd bet Parker and Parrott weren't well regarded by staff at any point in their careers.

+1 Dr. Parrott, with her doctorate from Va Tech, reportedly had the student's file in her car, doesnt remember who gave it to her, and all the child's disciplinary forms are now missing. Dr. Parrott is unintelligent, dishonest, or both.

[Anonymous]

Can someone explain to me why the admin would have an interest in removing and destroying specific child records - like the records of this kid shooter?

It seems like the admin here were deliberately trying to avoid something. Why? Why not keep the records, and expel kids? What do admin have to lose by kicking out a dangerous student?

[Anonymous]

I have a theory why the admins acted as they did. (I think they were wrong and should be criminally charged.) Schools over the last few decades have been over referring students of color for special education evaluations and services. Black students are 4x as likely to receive referrals and IEP placement than their white peers. Not because they need services more, but because they are more likely to be seen as violent, or as cognitively impaired, or they aren't offered interventions through the RTI process like white students would be, etc. That's a real problem that's lead to an unintended consequence.

Many schools now stall or refuse to evaluate or recommend an IEP for children of color because they are receiving pressure from their state boards of education to not do so. This means, kids who truly, truly need to be evaluated, like this student who shot his teacher, are not getting what they need. I've seen this myself and have been told this myself in meetings with sped teams on why they want years (yes, years) of "intervention" or why they won't recommend an IEP. They don't want to get dinged by the state. I have had several students where I've kept dozens of pages worth of incidents around safety, along with dozens of pages of notes on interventions taking up the entire year or more, tons of meeting notes, etc. and the sped team delays, or denies what the teacher is saying. The people who know the child the least (ie, the sped admin, the principal, the speech path, the OT, the nurse, anyone on the "team" who spends 0-30 min a week with a kid vs. the teacher who spends 35+ hours with the kid) are "outvoting" the teacher who KNOWS the kid needs serious help. It's why I'm looking to leave education.

I'm all for including kids with special needs. But kids, diagnosed or not, who repetitively hurt others, kids who are unsafe enough that the room needs to be evacuated more than once or twice, kids who make violent threats, etc, need some other kind of placement. We're seeing a dramatic rise in students who are dangerous to others and they need something different. Time for taxes to rise to cover both their educational and medical care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a theory why the admins acted as they did. (I think they were wrong and should be criminally charged.) Schools over the last few decades have been over referring students of color for special education evaluations and services. Black students are 4x as likely to receive referrals and IEP placement than their white peers. Not because they need services more, but because they are more likely to be seen as violent, or as cognitively impaired, or they aren't offered interventions through the RTI process like white students would be, etc. That's a real problem that's lead to an unintended consequence.

Many schools now stall or refuse to evaluate or recommend an IEP for children of color because they are receiving pressure from their state boards of education to not do so. This means, kids who truly, truly need to be evaluated, like this student who shot his teacher, are not getting what they need. I've seen this myself and have been told this myself in meetings with sped teams on why they want years (yes, years) of "intervention" or why they won't recommend an IEP. They don't want to get dinged by the state. I have had several students where I've kept dozens of pages worth of incidents around safety, along with dozens of pages of notes on interventions taking up the entire year or more, tons of meeting notes, etc. and the sped team delays, or denies what the teacher is saying. The people who know the child the least (ie, the sped admin, the principal, the speech path, the OT, the nurse, anyone on the "team" who spends 0-30 min a week with a kid vs. the teacher who spends 35+ hours with the kid) are "outvoting" the teacher who KNOWS the kid needs serious help. It's why I'm looking to leave education.

I'm all for including kids with special needs. But kids, diagnosed or not, who repetitively hurt others, kids who are unsafe enough that the room needs to be evacuated more than once or twice, kids who make violent threats, etc, need some other kind of placement. We're seeing a dramatic rise in students who are dangerous to others and they need something different. Time for taxes to rise to cover both their educational and medical care.

You’ve absolutely nailed it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WOW.

If all this is true, more heads need to roll. SEVERAL YEARS OF PRISON for all these administrators. Prohibition from working with children ever again.

It's only dumb luck that this teacher didn't die.

Charge all the adults in the household as well.

Incentivize child abuse - since you are blaming the grandfather who attempted to parent the child but did not provide a gun to him. Guess he should have whupped him more.

The grandfather is his current guardian, and I have read his guardian at the time of the shooting. That he thinks the child has now learned is delusional given the child brought a KNIFE on the school bus in March. You may not care about the other kids all going to a special ed school or the driver or aides, but I do. This child is clearly not receiving the necessary interventions. Not riding the bus is not addressing his dangerousness in other contexts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What was the motive of the administrators re: the whole situation, and the day of the shooting? As a parent, I don't understand.

All I can see is extreme laziness. And simply not wanting to deal with any of it. The comment of the assistant principal that Ms.Zwerner can call go ahead and call the parent herself if she wants the boy picked up early!?!

I’m guessing Ms. Zwerner and Dr Parker were not on good terms and specifically didn’t see eye to eye on this kid. I would think that the teacher understandably and rightfully was not happy about this kid being in her class and the ridiculous things they did to keep him there and was probably also not happy about changing to full days without parents. She was probably even less happy about only one day suspension after the incident on the 4th. I can imagine that she could have even complained to Dr Parker that morning, before anyone reported suspicion of a gun.

I’m also guessing that any of the services needed for this kid would have come out of the school’s obviously inadequate budget, and that having the kid show up for morning attendance meant the school received whatever incremental amount of budget increase they get for one student. None of that is any excuse for Dr Parker’s actions, and I’m glad she’s being charged. But I’m guessing the dysfunction goes way beyond the school administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WOW.

If all this is true, more heads need to roll. SEVERAL YEARS OF PRISON for all these administrators. Prohibition from working with children ever again.

It's only dumb luck that this teacher didn't die.

Charge all the adults in the household as well.

Why is the child with the family at all? Why hasn’t CPS taken him and placed him in a more appropriate and accountable setting?

Incentivize child abuse - since you are blaming the grandfather who attempted to parent the child but did not provide a gun to him. Guess he should have whupped him more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a theory why the admins acted as they did. (I think they were wrong and should be criminally charged.) Schools over the last few decades have been over referring students of color for special education evaluations and services. Black students are 4x as likely to receive referrals and IEP placement than their white peers. Not because they need services more, but because they are more likely to be seen as violent, or as cognitively impaired, or they aren't offered interventions through the RTI process like white students would be, etc. That's a real problem that's lead to an unintended consequence.

Many schools now stall or refuse to evaluate or recommend an IEP for children of color because they are receiving pressure from their state boards of education to not do so. This means, kids who truly, truly need to be evaluated, like this student who shot his teacher, are not getting what they need. I've seen this myself and have been told this myself in meetings with sped teams on why they want years (yes, years) of "intervention" or why they won't recommend an IEP. They don't want to get dinged by the state. I have had several students where I've kept dozens of pages worth of incidents around safety, along with dozens of pages of notes on interventions taking up the entire year or more, tons of meeting notes, etc. and the sped team delays, or denies what the teacher is saying. The people who know the child the least (ie, the sped admin, the principal, the speech path, the OT, the nurse, anyone on the "team" who spends 0-30 min a week with a kid vs. the teacher who spends 35+ hours with the kid) are "outvoting" the teacher who KNOWS the kid needs serious help. It's why I'm looking to leave education.

I'm all for including kids with special needs. But kids, diagnosed or not, who repetitively hurt others, kids who are unsafe enough that the room needs to be evacuated more than once or twice, kids who make violent threats, etc, need some other kind of placement. We're seeing a dramatic rise in students who are dangerous to others and they need something different. Time for taxes to rise to cover both their educational and medical care.

But are you sure that they are over referred and not correctly referred? Yes, many school districts and administrators have significantly corrected and will now suspend or transfer a white boy much more quickly than a black boy. Not at all sure it makes sense or is good for anyone, from an objective standpoint.

[Anonymous]

I hope Dr. Parrott has a lawyer; looks like they may actually be coming after her next.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/04/11/richneck-teacher-student-shooting-investigation/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is a link to the grand jury report. it’s mind blowing. The gun jammed after the first shot, the gun still had 7 bullets. Also the grand jury found substantial evidence that witness tampering occurred at a criminal level including the sudden disappearance of the student’s disciplinary file and believe it was deliberately removed.

https://nncwa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Full-Report-2024-opt.pdf

The assistant principal was arrested today. She appears in court tomorrow.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why there was such concern about searching the kid's backpack. This is not going through someone's home searching for stuff. You're on school property--school staff have every right to go through your things at any time.

I've worked in a public school that had kids with behavioral/violent issues like this kid, but I always felt welcome to go through a child's things any time I ever felt it remotely needed.

This school and administration sound truly inept and dangerous. I'm so glad the AP was arrested.

I am going to speculate as a school psychologist why the teachers didn't search his backpack.

It is clear the assistant principal and principal are not at all supportive and downright callous as evidenced through out the grand jury report.

When he was in kindergarten, the student choked a teacher in September. After getting choked by the student the school counselor who had witnessed the incident took the child to the office and a couple of hours later the student was sent back to her class because allegedly no administrator was there to deal with it. That kindergarten teacher left her class with an aide, went to the office filled out an incident report AND kept a copy for herself (smart teacher!), then went to talk to both the principal and the vice-principal. After that incident there was a plan the student would no longer be in her class she saw the student eating breakfast with her class. So that K teacher confronted the Vice-Principal and said either she would leave or the student would leave but that they were NOT going to be in the same class together. Teachers who are able to assert their rights tend to be financially secure enough to quit, and/or savvy enough to go get medical treatment for their injury and go on leave and/or friends with the principal. It also could be the teacher is an amazing well-liked teacher and knows the principal will stick up for her. This situation of a teacher saying "it is me or the student, pick which one you want at school" is NOT common. A teacher can be reprimanded, written up and even fired for insubordination and not be willing to teach the class.

Most teachers need the paycheck, they teach because they want to be helpful, and aren't confrontational with callous administrators. So when there was a report of a gun on the child or in the backpack, logically you would think a 1st grade teacher would search the child's backpack and pockets. But when you have a really, really reactive student who can be very aggressive it isn't so easy. The first grade teacher needs to think of the whole class and keep the whole class safe. By searching his backpack, the student would most likely become really upset and aggressive. The teacher was not being supported at all by the administrators so if she called the office for help, it would be doubtful anyone would have come. And if the vice-principal would have come the teacher most likely would have been reprimanded for setting off the student. Many administrators put all the blame on teachers and their first question after a teacher has been hit, scratched, kicked, spat upon, bites, etc. is to ask what the TEACHER did to set off the student. So it is a catch-22 situation where a teacher can't win.

So if the teachers were really afraid to search the student, what the teacher needed is for someone to be more helpful and lure the student out of the classroom saying they had a prize for him for something in the office or the counselor office or wanted to show him something outside of the classroom and hope he left his backpack in the room. Same thing for searching pockets, you offer the kid something that is small enough that they can fit it in their pocket but large enough that you can usually tell if they have anything else in their pocket. Or you put on music and have a movement activity and see if the kid participates so it is easier to tell if something is in the pocket. If that doesn't work, if you are working with truly awful administrators who will go off the deep end if you search the backpack or student then for the good of the class you have to flat out lie and say you think saw something shiny and metallic (not a gun, but a description that could be something benign but could be a weapon) in the student's backpack or pocket and then email the admin so it is in writing then call the office. It is so tiring playing games with administrators who are lazy and only look out for themselves.

Both parents had been in the classroom with the student and I also wonder what the relationship between the teacher, the admin, and the parents was. Were the teachers afraid the parents would be upset if the student went home and complained he was searched? I can't imagine a teacher would want his parents in her classroom for a couple of hours every day.

The poster who said that perhaps he wasn't tested for special education because he is African-American has a point. Districts can get in trouble from the federal education department and state if they qualify too many students of any one race in a special education eligibility category compared to students from another race. There has been an over identification when you look at number of African-American students and the eligibility category of Emotionally Disturbed. What doesn't make sense is that the student began taking medication for ADHD, so they could have qualified him under Other Health Impaired due to ADHD. He really needed to be assessed at that point and I can picture a special education attorney reaching out to the parents to sue under Child Find. What also isn't clear is where he was after September of his kindergarten. The principal said Chicago, but that seems unlikely. The worse thing for the kid was to spend more time at home with family members who thought him being a tough guy was cute.

The district is completely at fault and I really hope the teacher gets millions.

[Anonymous]

So much of the report is horrible and incomprehensible, but I can’t get the imagine of the grandma and little boy who was waiting in the office out of my mind.
The principal and vice principal thought they could have an active shooter at the school and they literally just let a young student fend for himself rather than quickly grabbing the kid and pulling him into the office.
It’s horrifying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So much of the report is horrible and incomprehensible, but I can’t get the imagine of the grandma and little boy who was waiting in the office out of my mind.
The principal and vice principal thought they could have an active shooter at the school and they literally just let a young student fend for himself rather than quickly grabbing the kid and pulling him into the office.
It’s horrifying.

They also left the injured teacher who had a bullet hole in her chest, laying in the hall outside their door, bleeding on the floor. They opened the door, saw her there, shut and locked the door. They didn't try to bring her in to safety, nothing.

Also the janitor let the police in by physically opening the door. Not the admin.

I would assume that all schools have lock down drills, training on what to do in these situations. I am more than appalled at what happened here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So much of the report is horrible and incomprehensible, but I can’t get the imagine of the grandma and little boy who was waiting in the office out of my mind.
The principal and vice principal thought they could have an active shooter at the school and they literally just let a young student fend for himself rather than quickly grabbing the kid and pulling him into the office.
It’s horrifying.

We expect all teachers and administrators to teach, to be miracle therapists and social workers, and also to be better security guards than trained police. And then we are horrified and furious when they do not succeed.

These administrators were not admirable - but the situation with the 6 year old was beyond anything they should have had to handle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So much of the report is horrible and incomprehensible, but I can’t get the imagine of the grandma and little boy who was waiting in the office out of my mind.
The principal and vice principal thought they could have an active shooter at the school and they literally just let a young student fend for himself rather than quickly grabbing the kid and pulling him into the office.
It’s horrifying.

We expect all teachers and administrators to teach, to be miracle therapists and social workers, and also to be better security guards than trained police. And then we are horrified and furious when they do not succeed.

These administrators were not admirable - but the situation with the 6 year old was beyond anything they should have had to handle.

Did you actually read the report? All of it? Because these admins had plenty of opportunity, basically over an 18 month period preceding the shooting, to appropriately deal with the student. These people knew this student was "beyond anything they should have had to handle"; however these trained educational professional administrators, including the assistant principal who has her doctorate, actively, willingly and purposefully let that boy continue in the school in 1st grade, made unconscionable accommodations to keep him there. This wasn't a one, two or three times off. So just stop. They knew they couldn't handle him and that the school wasn't appropriate. But yet they refused to transfer him or find an acceptable solution for him and the rest of students and teachers.

WITW is wrong with you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So much of the report is horrible and incomprehensible, but I can’t get the imagine of the grandma and little boy who was waiting in the office out of my mind.
The principal and vice principal thought they could have an active shooter at the school and they literally just let a young student fend for himself rather than quickly grabbing the kid and pulling him into the office.
It’s horrifying.

We expect all teachers and administrators to teach, to be miracle therapists and social workers, and also to be better security guards than trained police. And then we are horrified and furious when they do not succeed.

These administrators were not admirable - but the situation with the 6 year old was beyond anything they should have had to handle.

Did you actually read the report? All of it? Because these admins had plenty of opportunity, basically over an 18 month period preceding the shooting, to appropriately deal with the student. These people knew this student was "beyond anything they should have had to handle"; however these trained educational professional administrators, including the assistant principal who has her doctorate, actively, willingly and purposefully let that boy continue in the school in 1st grade, made unconscionable accommodations to keep him there. This wasn't a one, two or three times off. So just stop. They knew they couldn't handle him and that the school wasn't appropriate. But yet they refused to transfer him or find an acceptable solution for him and the rest of students and teachers.

WITW is wrong with you?

FAPE, LRE, etc. As well as statistics re URMs, and budget issues. Do you know what those are?

Do you want every 5 year old who is a handful to be excluded or written off permanently? Or only some of them? This child is worse than others, yes, but still one of many trouble kids, some of whom need a different setting and some of whom will grow out of it.