Teacher shot at Newport News elementary school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who decided the parent didn't need to be sitting next to this kid on that day? Hope that administrator who approved his attendace without them goes to jail TOO. Seriously. Kid never belonged there in the first place.

It was likely a perfect storm of factors. Just speculating, but here’s some possibilities:
He’s had 5 months of somewhat reasonable behavior while his parents supervised him in class. It seems safe to take the risk because that particular day, mom is feeling unwell and dad can’t take off work at such short notice because his boss has already warned him twice that his absences are a problem. If he goes to school unsupervised and gets into trouble, what’s the worse that could happen? He’s six after all. Mom would come pick him up. Meanwhile, she’ll take some DayQuil and nap until dismissal.

Again, this is just a possibility, but it’s a decision many of us should recognize that we might make under the same circumstances.

You lost me there. There is no way I would ever have a gun in my home, period. There is no need for a gun. I would also never live in a home with a pool either. No need for that. They are both dangerous and unless you watch your kid 24/7, they are accidents waiting to happen.

This child has been said to have strangled his previous teacher in kindergarten. He should have been hospitalized not put in a gen ed setting for any reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but a child bringing bullets to school should be a suspension, I don't care what age.

We don't know the circumstances of all of this and we probably will never know. But what we do know is that a problem had been identified and more extreme measures were taken to try and handle the situation. Based on the measures that were been taken AND his bringing bullets a week before, he should not have been in that classroom.

No. Not suspension. Expulsion. Don't care that he's 6. Staff and students have a right to safety. Period.

[Anonymous]

So wait a minute.

He had a parent with him every day. Rumors were that he was bringing a gun into school. Those rumors happened when the parent was sitting next to him every day.

So.

#1) this is criminal negligence on the parents part for not locking the gun away on a different property.
#2) this child doesn’t have an acute disability. This child is a born sociopath to a)spread that kind of rumor while having parents around and b) to sneak a gun into school on the way day mom couldn’t make it.

I know the parents just don’t want to be sued so they are going to lie as much as possible to deflect blame. But it seems to me that the parents probably have some sociopathic tendencies if they are going to lie that the gun was “secured” (because it wasn’t because a 6 year old still got a hold of it) and they just happened to have a perfect storm of genetics to create a child sociopath.

Ethical dilemmas abound here.

[Anonymous]

New WaPo article has incredible accounts of students past violent behavior. I dont understand how he could have done these things IF his parents or grandparents were with him at school. The parents’ statement made it seem like the week of the shooting was the ONLY time they weren’t there. But WaPo article outlines him making threats, throwing furniture, barricading the doors and wandering around campus unsupervised. Where were his parents when this was going on?

Holy f-ing $hit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/21/richneck-elementary-school-shooting-warnings-downplayed/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New WaPo article has incredible accounts of students past violent behavior. I dont understand how he could have done these things IF his parents or grandparents were with him at school. The parents’ statement made it seem like the week of the shooting was the ONLY time they weren’t there. But WaPo article outlines him making threats, throwing furniture, barricading the doors and wandering around campus unsupervised. Where were his parents when this was going on?

Holy f-ing $hit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/21/richneck-elementary-school-shooting-warnings-downplayed/

I hate to say I called it, but I did, early on in this thread. Other teachers concurred.

[Anonymous]

This part stands out to me in the article re how he got the gun:

Ellenson, the attorney for the boy’s family, said in an interview that the gun was secured with a trigger lock and kept on the top shelf of the mother’s bedroom closet. Ellenson said it is unclear how the boy got hold of the gun.

[Anonymous]

so is he in a psychiatric hospital now? that sounds good; I would not want him returning to school at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This part stands out to me in the article re how he got the gun:

Ellenson, the attorney for the boy’s family, said in an interview that the gun was secured with a trigger lock and kept on the top shelf of the mother’s bedroom closet. Ellenson said it is unclear how the boy got hold of the gun.

Um, he climbed up to the top shelf of the closet where it was kept (wtf) and grabbed it. There was no trigger lock and the ammo wasn't locked up separately and the lawyer and anyone else with even a passing knowledge of how firearms work knows it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New WaPo article has incredible accounts of students past violent behavior. I dont understand how he could have done these things IF his parents or grandparents were with him at school. The parents’ statement made it seem like the week of the shooting was the ONLY time they weren’t there. But WaPo article outlines him making threats, throwing furniture, barricading the doors and wandering around campus unsupervised. Where were his parents when this was going on?

Holy f-ing $hit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/21/richneck-elementary-school-shooting-warnings-downplayed/

I hate to say I called it, but I did, early on in this thread. Other teachers concurred.

He could do those things because the family couldn't control the child either. This was the wrong placement from start to finish. I wish I could read the whole article (paywall) but I'm guessing this will come out in other articles. My school has kids who run out of the room and the building, kids who throw objects, kids who bruise or draw blood from staff, etc. While this child took it one step further with a gun, most schools are seeing this kind of behavior.
My proposal is that any child who harms someone or makes threats of harm more than once, in a serious way, is removed immediately from the gen ed room and that "safety rooms" become a designation within Sped. That way, the kids who need sped placements for learning, and or who aren't a danger to others or themselves are also safe. There needs to be a self contained room for unsafe children. It would be their LRE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New WaPo article has incredible accounts of students past violent behavior. I dont understand how he could have done these things IF his parents or grandparents were with him at school. The parents’ statement made it seem like the week of the shooting was the ONLY time they weren’t there. But WaPo article outlines him making threats, throwing furniture, barricading the doors and wandering around campus unsupervised. Where were his parents when this was going on?

Holy f-ing $hit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/21/richneck-elementary-school-shooting-warnings-downplayed/

+1
“The Virginia teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student repeatedly asked administrators for help with the boy but officials downplayed educators’ warnings about his behavior, including dismissing his threat to light a teacher on fire and watch her die, according to messages from teachers obtained by The Washington Post.
The previously unreported incidents raise fresh questions about how Richneck Elementary School in Newport News handled the troubled student before police say he shot Abigail Zwerner as she taught her first-grade class earlier this month. Authorities have called the shooting “intentional” but are still investigating the motive.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so is he in a psychiatric hospital now? that sounds good; I would not want him returning to school at this point.

Doubtful. Parents sound in massive denial. Even the fact they call this an “acute disability.” Girl bye. That’s a concussion. Your son is a violent sociopath

[Anonymous]

hows the teacher doing now? recovered?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Who decided the parent didn't need to be sitting next to this kid on that day? Hope that administrator who approved his attendace without them goes to jail TOO. Seriously. Kid never belonged there in the first place.


It was likely a perfect storm of factors. Just speculating, but here’s some possibilities:
He’s had 5 months of somewhat reasonable behavior while his parents supervised him in class. It seems safe to take the risk because that particular day, mom is feeling unwell and dad can’t take off work at such short notice because his boss has already warned him twice that his absences are a problem. If he goes to school unsupervised and gets into trouble, what’s the worse that could happen? He’s six after all. Mom would come pick him up. Meanwhile, she’ll take some DayQuil and nap until dismissal.

Again, this is just a possibility, but it’s a decision many of us should recognize that we might make under the same circumstances.

And this would have been a reasonable set of risks to take, had the parents not chosen to have a gun at home. This is on the parents. No parents of a child with this behavioral profile should have a firearm at home. No way, no how. I say this as a parent of a child with emotional dysregulation due to prenatal alcohol exposure. When my child was the age of the child in this situation, they would easily have tried to get access to a weapon when in an extremely dysregulated condition. Even though I grew up in a part of the US where gun ownership is common, and I grew up around guns, there was/is NO WAY I would ever have a gun in my home because of my child's disability. Children have a knack for getting at prohibited items. The risks are just too great.

Considering that this same child also threatened in writing to set a teacher on fire, it would be dangerous to have flammable liquids and matches or lighters in the home. I’d worry about knives, screwdrivers, box cutters, and other sharp objects as well. This child was a ticking time bomb so he was going to harm someone the first chance he got regardless of the weapon he could acquire. His parents failed to secure the gun, the school failed to find the gun while searching his backpack, but it just as easily could have been a capful of Drano that he slipped into her coffee cup while her back was turned. This kid needed to be in a home with zero weapons or ersatz weapons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This part stands out to me in the article re how he got the gun:

Ellenson, the attorney for the boy’s family, said in an interview that the gun was secured with a trigger lock and kept on the top shelf of the mother’s bedroom closet. Ellenson said it is unclear how the boy got hold of the gun.

Also, how did he write a threatening note at age 6? Most kids can't even spell (even kid-spell) this stuff. Burn the teacher and watch her die??? Did the parents write the note? If he actually wrote it, he should be in a school for genius psychos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This part stands out to me in the article re how he got the gun:

Ellenson, the attorney for the boy’s family, said in an interview that the gun was secured with a trigger lock and kept on the top shelf of the mother’s bedroom closet. Ellenson said it is unclear how the boy got hold of the gun.

Also, how did he write a threatening note at age 6? Most kids can't even spell (even kid-spell) this stuff. Burn the teacher and watch her die??? Did the parents write the note? If he actually wrote it, he should be in a school for genius psychos.

I am a teacher to primary students. Students wrote these notes and no, they are not spelled correctly but why would that even matter? You can figure out what they student is trying to say.