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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Blame lies with the AP, but I do think in hindsight we have to ask several questions as to whether someone else could have prevented the horrible incident in the entire chain of events.

The teacher reported aggressive behaviors - that was ignored by the AP and the reading specialist saw this interaction. Then reading teacher was told about the gun and asked the kid to search his backpack, which he refused. So she goes to report this to admin, why didn’t she take the backpack with her? If the child did not give her permission to check the bag, taking it with her =/= searching the bag. Carrying it up to the office without opening it means she did not search it without permission so she can’t get in trouble for searching.

Unless the teachers are completely terrified of this child to the point where his threat “no one is getting that bag” meant that she was physically scared of going against what he says. She goes and makes a verbal report to the AP and finds out AP is ignoring her just like she did to the classroom teacher earlier. So she goes in during recess when kids were outside to search the backpack - this suggests that she may have been scared of the child so had to do it when he’s not there and by then the gun has been taken out. I think she was fearful of him. If she had been afraid of losing her job she wouldn’t go search the backpack after she did not get permission from the AP. She reported it hoping to get the admin into the room to provide backup in case that kid saw someone touching his backpack and attack her or others. Once she could not get the AP in there she had to wait until he was outside.

What is crazy is that after the AP had shown zero care about the serious reports from the classroom teacher and reading teacher, everyone else (lead teacher and guidance counselor) continued to go to her to make more reports. And after she refused to intervene from 4 staff concerns, they did not attempt to report to someone else? The security officer? Get more staff without students to go in the classroom to help? They were ignored by the AP - that’s not their fault. But after being brushed off by the AP they simply left the classroom teacher in there with a kid who they suspect has a gun in his pocket + an entire classroom of kids???

“Hey we reported to the AP; she doesn’t care and did not give permission to search the kid.” That’s it?? Once the AP ignored their warnings, they didn’t attempt to get the security officer to maybe keep an eye on a child they suspect has a gun? No one got any other staff (office, coaches, specialists, assistants, etc) in the classroom to even help manage the other kids? No one tried to get the other kids away???

The classroom teacher was just left in the classroom by herself with a kid that multiple adults suspected strongly had a gun + 20 some kids. She was basically left alone by not just the AP, but abandoned by the other adults who in the end, only followed orders.

She has a classroom full of students + that kid with a gun, and[b] after a series of reports that went unanswered to the AP in charge, had to keep teaching while obviously under immense fear with zero other adults in the classroom to help manage the dangerous situation. She was alone in the end.[/b] [/quote]

This is more common than a lot of people realize. Thankfully kids bringing weapons into classrooms is very rare but it's routine for administrators to ignore or gaslight teachers who raise safety concerns, especially young teachers. You're given no support and told you have bad classroom management and expected to carry on like it's business as usual while watching your back and the backs of 27 other kids at the same time. No wonder there's a teacher shortage.[/quote]

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