Teacher shot at Newport News elementary school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“He was so troubled, in fact, at least one of his parents was required to attend school with him “because of his violent tendencies.”

If this is true, then this child should never have been in public school.

Lawsuit also says that the child's parents refused any type of controlled classroom and demanded their son be placed only with other nonIEP (or whatever it's called, sorry, I am not sure of the term/mainstream?) students, even after the K incident with choking his teacher.

I don't understand why the school agreed to this.

Where did you find this additional information?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry. The child is a menace and should NEVER have been put back in a mainstream classroom. It's beyond ridiculous that that's what we do now.

Also, school is 1000% responsible and should pay. The asst principal that would not allow a search of the backpack should be made to pay monetary damages and NEVER work in education again.

Not much to be done about the parents other than they should be charged with allowing a violent kid to gain access to a firearm. Complete and utter losers.


This story makes me incensed on so many levels

I don't understand WHY backpack searches weren't allowed. What was the reasoning??

Thankfully I work at a school where my admin trust us - if we felt a need to look through backpacks, it wouldn't be a problem. We're touching kids things all day long (coats, water bottles, lunch boxes, things left behind). A backpack is no different. Hell, all that's in a 1st grader's backpack are their lunch/water/snack, weekly folder, and maybe extra clothing.

Has the school admin give a reason why backpack searches were not allowed??

They did the backpack but it wasn't there. The kid was wearing a hoodie with the front pocket (that both of your hands fit) and it was in the pocket. A kid even said he's got it in his pocket. But I guess searching the kid's clothes is considered searching the "person" and they needed permission and the vice principal said no.

[Anonymous]

A group of parents of children who witnessed the shooting are intending to sue. One allegation is that a kid warned the teacher, and she told the kid to sit down and be quiet. Now the vice principal is blaming the teacher too.

https://www.wavy.com/news/investigative/attorney-student-reported-gun-to-teacher-before-she-was-shot-by-6-year-old/

[Anonymous]

I can 100% see this happening in MCPS. We had a student bring a knife to school which was shown to other kids and he was bragging about it to others. A teacher and another school member (building services) searched the bag and found a full hunting knife in the bag. The teacher got in trouble for searching the bag and the child had a half day of in-school suspension (during which he still got to enjoy lunch and recess). The class was traumatized and the teacher quit about a week later- the class still has no teacher. The child is still out of control and is scary for anyone in there. It would not shock me one bit to hear that in a couple of years he brings in a gun.

I hope this teacher gets everything she is asking for. I also hope that it will lead to changes about appropriate placements and safety in schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry. The child is a menace and should NEVER have been put back in a mainstream classroom. It's beyond ridiculous that that's what we do now.

Also, school is 1000% responsible and should pay. The asst principal that would not allow a search of the backpack should be made to pay monetary damages and NEVER work in education again.

Not much to be done about the parents other than they should be charged with allowing a violent kid to gain access to a firearm. Complete and utter losers.


This story makes me incensed on so many levels

I don't understand WHY backpack searches weren't allowed. What was the reasoning??

Thankfully I work at a school where my admin trust us - if we felt a need to look through backpacks, it wouldn't be a problem. We're touching kids things all day long (coats, water bottles, lunch boxes, things left behind). A backpack is no different. Hell, all that's in a 1st grader's backpack are their lunch/water/snack, weekly folder, and maybe extra clothing.

Has the school admin give a reason why backpack searches were not allowed??

they did search the backpack

https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/newport-news/lawyer-for-newport-news-teacher-shot-by-6-year-old-to-issue-statement/

Around 12:30 p.m., another teacher went to a school administrator and told them that she searched the 6-year-old’s backpack, who at the time was rumored to have brought a gun to school.

"The teacher then told the administrator that she believed the 6-year-old put the gun in his pocket before going out to recess. The administrator then downplayed the report they received from the teacher saying, “well he has little pockets.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“He was so troubled, in fact, at least one of his parents was required to attend school with him “because of his violent tendencies.”

If this is true, then this child should never have been in public school.

Lawsuit also says that the child's parents refused any type of controlled classroom and demanded their son be placed only with other nonIEP (or whatever it's called, sorry, I am not sure of the term/mainstream?) students, even after the K incident with choking his teacher.

I don't understand why the school agreed to this.

Where did you find this additional information?

Here (this is a local news website from Hampton Roads):

https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/newport-news/abby-zwerners-lawyers-file-40m-lawsuit-against-newport-news-schools/?ipid=promo-link-block1


The lawsuit alleges that the boy was removed from school during the 2021-2022 school year, when he was a kindergartener, after he strangled a teacher. They also said the child’s parents had expressed how they didn’t want him in special education.

[Anonymous]

According to the compliant he also pulled up a girl's dress on the playground and inappropriately touched her. This kid needs so much help.

https://www.pilotonline.com/news/dp-nw-newport-news-schools-20230403-b2pl4znkanfinn2h4om5ivs5ua-story.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry. The child is a menace and should NEVER have been put back in a mainstream classroom. It's beyond ridiculous that that's what we do now.

Also, school is 1000% responsible and should pay. The asst principal that would not allow a search of the backpack should be made to pay monetary damages and NEVER work in education again.

Not much to be done about the parents other than they should be charged with allowing a violent kid to gain access to a firearm. Complete and utter losers.


This story makes me incensed on so many levels

Well said.

The school should have recommended alternate placement long ago. If the parents refused (which sounds likely) the school should have insisted and forced parents ot take them to court. (I'm not sure how it works, but it seems there was plenty of evidence to insist upon alternate placement.

I find it very intersting that the parents have not yet been charged. Makes me wonder if they are contemplating charges beyond the weapon.

It is also interesting that no information about family has been leaked.

+1 Clearly, this school system's administrators put other concerns and priorities ahead of the safety of their students, teachers, and staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry. The child is a menace and should NEVER have been put back in a mainstream classroom. It's beyond ridiculous that that's what we do now.

Also, school is 1000% responsible and should pay. The asst principal that would not allow a search of the backpack should be made to pay monetary damages and NEVER work in education again.

Not much to be done about the parents other than they should be charged with allowing a violent kid to gain access to a firearm. Complete and utter losers.


This story makes me incensed on so many levels

Well said.

The school should have recommended alternate placement long ago. If the parents refused (which sounds likely) the school should have insisted and forced parents ot take them to court. (I'm not sure how it works, but it seems there was plenty of evidence to insist upon alternate placement.

I find it very intersting that the parents have not yet been charged. Makes me wonder if they are contemplating charges beyond the weapon.

It is also interesting that no information about family has been leaked.

NP - my understanding is the child had had alternative placement but was moved BACK to Richneck. From an article another PP posted:

During kindergarten at Richneck the year before, the lawsuit says, the boy “strangled and choked a teacher,” and inappropriately touched a female student who had fallen in a playground. The boy was soon moved from Richneck to the Denbigh Early Childhood Center.

He came back to Richneck in September 2022 to start first grade. But he was soon put on a modified schedule after cursing at staffers and “chasing students around the playground with a belt in an effort to whip them with it.”

Under the new plan, one of the boy’s parents “was required to accompany him at school” every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A group of parents of children who witnessed the shooting are intending to sue. One allegation is that a kid warned the teacher, and she told the kid to sit down and be quiet. Now the vice principal is blaming the teacher too.

https://www.wavy.com/news/investigative/attorney-student-reported-gun-to-teacher-before-she-was-shot-by-6-year-old/

How dare the VP blame the teacher? Man, I wish the parents and administration were held personally liable and pursued to the ends of the Earth to ensure the judgments is collected.

I’m so disgusted with the parents. Having a gun where the boy was trying to touch girls, chased kids with a belt to hit them, was already kicked out of one school, strangled his K teacher, and brought bullets BEFORE bringing the gun to school. They were there daily so they had to know all of this! And if the allegation that they didn’t want him in Special Ed is true, god, put them under a jail.

That any of this is catered to means to me that I hope the teacher gets every dollar she’s suing for. I cannot believe anyone in this system is trying to turn parents against the teacher to got SHOT and still escorted the other kids to safety. I can’t even deal with this story. The adult who did nothing wrong was the teacher - the administration and especially the parents are at fault.

Those parents should be named and shamed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A group of parents of children who witnessed the shooting are intending to sue. One allegation is that a kid warned the teacher, and she told the kid to sit down and be quiet. Now the vice principal is blaming the teacher too.

https://www.wavy.com/news/investigative/attorney-student-reported-gun-to-teacher-before-she-was-shot-by-6-year-old/

Haven’t other articles all along said that the teacher that was shot and another teacher reported the gun and the threats that day? The half assed search happened because his threats were reported to the administration.

I’m all for parents also suing the school system because this child should never have been allowed to be mainstreamed. But claiming the injured teacher ignored a child’s concern is a bridge too far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A group of parents of children who witnessed the shooting are intending to sue. One allegation is that a kid warned the teacher, and she told the kid to sit down and be quiet. Now the vice principal is blaming the teacher too.

https://www.wavy.com/news/investigative/attorney-student-reported-gun-to-teacher-before-she-was-shot-by-6-year-old/

Haven’t other articles all along said that the teacher that was shot and another teacher reported the gun and the threats that day? The half assed search happened because his threats were reported to the administration.

I’m all for parents also suing the school system because this child should never have been allowed to be mainstreamed. But claiming the injured teacher ignored a child’s concern is a bridge too far.

Meant to also say that I hope every teacher and parent in the US uses this instance to call the police each and every time there is a threat of violence. School administrators cannot be trusted to maintain safety for students and staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A group of parents of children who witnessed the shooting are intending to sue. One allegation is that a kid warned the teacher, and she told the kid to sit down and be quiet. Now the vice principal is blaming the teacher too.

https://www.wavy.com/news/investigative/attorney-student-reported-gun-to-teacher-before-she-was-shot-by-6-year-old/

Haven’t other articles all along said that the teacher that was shot and another teacher reported the gun and the threats that day? The half assed search happened because his threats were reported to the administration.

I’m all for parents also suing the school system because this child should never have been allowed to be mainstreamed. But claiming the injured teacher ignored a child’s concern is a bridge too far.

Yes. I’m actually shocked that the parents and their counsel are saying that. I’m just livid, I can’t help it.

I do think there’s potentially some connection there with why the parents haven’t been exposed. Richneck is a majority Black student population, and Zwerner is white. I know that on other sites like Lipstick Alley posters confidently asserted that the shooter had to be Caucasian because the ‘plan’ and ‘accommodations’ were too crazy to be believed. Someone copied a comment to that site from Reddit - who knows - claiming the boy and his family are black, that this is known throughout the area. I think the desire to not stigmatize or participate in the school to prison pipeline meant that the teacher was seen as not fundamentally important by the admin, the guilty as sin parents, and some other parents in the community.

Has anyone ever run across the kind of accommodation described here? Has anyone ever had parents effectively refuse special educational environments for a kid who showed that level of violence and predation by kindergarten? Whipping kids? Sexual touching of a little girl who fell on the playground? I have never even heard of this before, and I have DC and am a teacher’s kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A group of parents of children who witnessed the shooting are intending to sue. One allegation is that a kid warned the teacher, and she told the kid to sit down and be quiet. Now the vice principal is blaming the teacher too.

https://www.wavy.com/news/investigative/attorney-student-reported-gun-to-teacher-before-she-was-shot-by-6-year-old/

Haven’t other articles all along said that the teacher that was shot and another teacher reported the gun and the threats that day? The half assed search happened because his threats were reported to the administration.

I’m all for parents also suing the school system because this child should never have been allowed to be mainstreamed. But claiming the injured teacher ignored a child’s concern is a bridge too far.

Yes. I’m actually shocked that the parents and their counsel are saying that. I’m just livid, I can’t help it.

I do think there’s potentially some connection there with why the parents haven’t been exposed. Richneck is a majority Black student population, and Zwerner is white. I know that on other sites like Lipstick Alley posters confidently asserted that the shooter had to be Caucasian because the ‘plan’ and ‘accommodations’ were too crazy to be believed. Someone copied a comment to that site from Reddit - who knows - claiming the boy and his family are black, that this is known throughout the area. I think the desire to not stigmatize or participate in the school to prison pipeline meant that the teacher was seen as not fundamentally important by the admin, the guilty as sin parents, and some other parents in the community.

Has anyone ever run across the kind of accommodation described here? Has anyone ever had parents effectively refuse special educational environments for a kid who showed that level of violence and predation by kindergarten? Whipping kids? Sexual touching of a little girl who fell on the playground? I have never even heard of this before, and I have DC and am a teacher’s kid.

I have not. But I also don’t understand how that requirement would have been legal. If the school determined that there was a need for 1:1 supervision, aren’t they required to provide an aid?

Frankly I’m surprised that someone in the school admin hasn’t leaked wgat was done pre-shooting and blamed the Superintendent for refusing to require the child to be in a self contained classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“He was so troubled, in fact, at least one of his parents was required to attend school with him “because of his violent tendencies.”

If this is true, then this child should never have been in public school.

Lawsuit also says that the child's parents refused any type of controlled classroom and demanded their son be placed only with other nonIEP (or whatever it's called, sorry, I am not sure of the term/mainstream?) students, even after the K incident with choking his teacher.

I don't understand why the school agreed to this.

We have a situation in our DCPS classroom where the kid has a very serious established history of violence of all sorts. But the child’s parents refuse to acknowledge the problem. Kid is still in class. I truly believe the only thing that will result in removal is actually bringing a gun to school. It’s pathetic. I hope this teacher gets everything and I hope the school administration gets roasted.

I wonder if we're parents in the same classroom (Capitol Hill DCPS)? Probably not and there are just instances of this everywhere, but it's scary... The kid in my kid's class has threatened to kill a classmate (with a detailed plan for how it would occur), choked a classmate, thrown a chair at the teacher and more. Luckily for my kid, he has a specific victim profile that my kid doesn't fit, but even the small steps that have been taken to date (getting the kid an evaluation over his parents' objection) are only as a result of one of his victim's parents threatening a lawsuit.