On Wednesdays, I write about a story in my local newspaper, The Virginia Gazette. This commitment means that I have to wait until I see my morning newspaper before I can write my newsletter for the day. I’ve made this rule for myself, but I enjoy the challenge.
This morning I paged (online) through the paper until I reached this story on an inside page. I decided to write about it today because it sits at the nexus of several serious issues – guns, drugs, and education.
First, here’s the short story about what happened: a 6-year-old boy at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News (about 30 minutes from Williamsburg) shot his first-grade teacher Abby Zwerner in January of 2023; the teacher sustained life-threatened injuries, although she is recuperating from her injuries. The boy had been suspended the day before the shooting because he broke Zwerner’s cell phone. When he returned to school the following day, he had his mother’s handgun with him. Despite being shot in the hand and in the shoulder, Zwerner was able to escort her remaining 20 students to safety before collapsing. She was hospitalized for two weeks after the attack. The school was closed for three weeks.
The boy’s mother has been charged with a variety of crimes, including felony child neglect, a misdemeanor charge of “allowing access to firearms by children,” a federal charge for using a controlled substance – marijuana – while in possession of a firearm, and lying on a federal background check form when she purchased the handgun in July of 2022. When it happened, this event garnered a lot of local attention and even got some traction nationally – making its way to a brief mention on Maddow and a televised interview by Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s Today Show– before fading from the limelight. Here’s the full story if you want to know more. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/abigail-zwerner-recovery-after-shot-by-student-rcna75336
A related story soon developed: Zwerner has alleged that the school administrators knew that the boy had a gun, but didn’t do anything about it on the day of the shooting. A separate special grand jury in Newport News is looking into the actions of school system administrators and others pertaining to the shooting.
A series of personnel changes swiftly followed this shooting. The school’s assistant principal resigned two weeks later, the principal was reassigned to another school, and the school board removed the superintendent just a few weeks later.
Let’s start with the drugs. Virginia took some steps in 2021 to legalize marijuana: adults over 21 may legally possess one ounce of cannabis in a public place, use marijuana in a private residence, and grow up to four plants per household. They may not sell weed, give it to minors, or use it in public spaces. The boy’s mother, Deja Nicole Taylor, was a regular user of marijuana who lied about her use of the substance when she purchased her handgun at a gun store in York County, Virginia.
This leads, of course, to the issue of firearms. Guns are still widely available in Virginia, and the background check required clearly failed to reveal Taylor’s drug use. She then failed to secure the gun so that her six-year-old couldn’t have access to it. A reminder – in the recent General Assembly session, the Virginia GOP attempted to roll back a variety of restrictions on firearms that had been passed during the previous session, when the Democrats were in control. Among the bills killed was one that would have made it a felony not to lock up your guns and keep the key away from your children.
And let’s not forget the role of the public schools in all of this. In Virginia (and most other states), part of the statewide evaluation of schools focuses on attendance levels. It is not sufficient to achieve pass rates in the end-of-year standardized testing; schools have to show that they are not simply suspending or expelling their “problem” students so their pass rates are high. This has led to a decrease in imposed consequences for misbehavior in the schools. Disruptive students are often provided after-school detention or “in-school suspension” (which allows them to be marked “present”) rather than out-of-school suspension or expulsion. I understand these decisions; particularly when an elementary-age child is told to stay home unexpectedly, childcare arrangements go up in smoke and the offending child is more likely to be left alone, or at least inadequately supervised, than to be appropriately dealt with by his parents. In the wake of COVID, administrators and teachers are struggling to reset their expectations in the face of the fact that for too many children, the COVID years resulted in reduced accountability for both teachers and students. For a 6-year-old, the COVID years meant he was not as ready for school as we usually expect from first graders.
NOTE: I taught in Newport News for 14 years after we moved to Williamsburg in 1998. Richneck Elementary School, where this shooting occurred, is only three miles from Woodside and is a “feeder” elementary school for Woodside. Most of my students had attended Richneck. Abby Zwerner lived in Williamsburg.
Add to this the fact that this young boy was, at best, troubled. Zwerner’s lawsuit alleges that the school board and administrators knew that the student had a history of random violence, but didn’t proactively address concerns and warning signs, including that the boy may have had a firearm in his possession in the hours before Zwerner was shot. Reports after the shooting were that the boy, who has an unidentified “acute disability,” was required to be accompanied by a parent during the school day “because of his violent tendencies.” But on that day, school administrators allowed him to remain unaccompanied without a one-on-one companion during the school day. I haven’t read an explanation for why he was not accompanied on that day; it may be because his mother had to stay home with him the previous day and had work obligations on the day of the shooting, but I don’t know.
The shooting occurred at 2:00 in the afternoon; Zwerner’s lawsuit alleges that school administrators ignored concerns and warning signs flagged by several teachers and staff members, including that the boy may have had a firearm in his possession on the morning of the shooting. Zwerner herself texted a family member (a few hours before the shooting) that she had heard rumors that the boy had a gun with him that day. The school assistant principal also forbade teachers from searching the boy, saying that his mother would be arriving soon to pick him up.
Officials declined to charge the six-year-old for his actions, but have charged his mother instead. This is sensible.
Abby Zwerner has had four surgeries on her hand and still has a bullet in her shoulder. She is experiencing an uneven recovery from the shooting, uncertain about whether she will ever regain full use of her hand and still carrying around the bullet. I haven’t heard her talk about her plans for the future, but I would be astonished if she ever wanted to set foot in a classroom again. This is a shame; by all accounts, she was a gifted and beloved teacher.
One more example of too many guns in our communities.
Infuriating.