CROSBY — A sixth-grade male student was suspended Wednesday after school officials learned the student had a small pellet gun in his backpack at Cuyuna Range Elementary School.
Crosby-Ironton School Superintendent Jamie Skjeveland said Thursday that school officials received a tip Wednesday morning from a student that the sixth-grader had a gun. Skjeveland said they do not know why the boy brought the gun to school. Skjeveland said the pellet gun never left the boy’s backpack.
“We responded accordingly and followed our weapon policy to the T.”
The school policy states immediate out-of-school suspension; confiscation of the weapon; immediate notification of police; parent or guardian notification; and a recommendation to the superintendent of dismissal for a period of time not to exceed one year.
Skjeveland said the school did not send out letters to the parents because “there was no one in danger at anytime and there was no threat.”
A father of a fifth-grader, who asked to remain anonymous, said he and other parents are upset that the school district did not send out any letters to the parents notifying them about the boy who brought the gun to school.
“We just got a call today (Thursday) after another parent read it on Facebook that there was a gun at the school,” the father said. “Now a bunch of parents are hearing it through the grapevine.
“Then we were told that the kids were told by the school to be hush, hush about the whole thing. They don’t want anyone to know about it, why? ... We’re all ... upset. We were going to go to the school because their phone system is down because of all the parents calling.”
In a second interview, Skjeveland said that the parents of the students who were involved were notified of the incident.
“If there was a threat we would have followed our school procedure and a lockdown would have occurred and all the parents of the students would have been notified through our alert system ... We don’t want to wind up in a situation where you have a boy who cried wolf. All parents are notified if there in an imminent threat.
“When a child makes a poor decision and there is no threat .. We did not feel that warranted a lockdown.”
Crosby Police Chief Kim Coughlin said the school reported the incident to the police and criminal charges are possible against the sixth-grader. The incident has been forwarded to the Crow Wing County’s Attorney office for review, she said.
Comments (8)
Add commentParents need to be notified
Parents need to be notified always in a situation like this. As far as hiding things they like to sweep the bullying that goes on there under the rug too.
Why do parents need to be notified?
I find it laughable that a parent wrote that he needs to know when a situation like this needs to be notified. Does he also need to be notified when any other issues happen at school? The way that I read this article, was that the school knew about the situation, and dealt with it in a timely manner, resulting in the situation being taken care of, before anyone was in danger, or even needing to make the other students feel unsafe.
Notificaton - CuriousCarrie
CuriousCarrie you are being notified today in a letter from the school. The fact is we don't know when the student first alerted the school about the pellet gun being in someone's backpack. It may have been at the end of the school day when there was no time to get letters out to all the students before they went home for the day.The student who alerted the school should be commended. It sounds like once alerted the staff acted immediately.
Quote directly from the Facebook page -
"At no point was the student body in danger. At no point was there ever a threat of violence or intent to cause harm. Had a real weapon been brought to school or there had been threat of violence, the school lockdown procedure would have been triggered, as well as the emergency school alert system to notify parents immediately."
This incident did not trigger a lockdown situation.
Because this involves a minor child there is "privacy" issues to deal with as well.
“Then we were told that the
“Then we were told that the kids were told by the school to be hush, hush about the whole thing. They don’t want anyone to know about it, why?
Exactly who in the school system said that? I think that was a made line of [filtered word] and whoever said that should have called the principal or superindentent to find out the story. If you're going to talk to the paper, don't lie about stuff.
I agree parents should have
I agree parents should have been notified..I am raising my grandson and he came home in tears and said i don,t want to go to school here anymore, when asked why he stated there was a gun in school today, and that puts fear in the children..as a parent or guardian its hard to help a child get through these fears if we dont know the story..I am glad it was handled properly, but notification should have been sent out...Whats the first thing a parent thinks when they hear that?
A pellet gun...Really?
I made a new custom carved stock for a shotgun in woodshop when I was in High school...and I needed the whole gun to do it. Lots of us had rifles and shotguns in our cars because you never knew when you could get in a few minutes of hunting in. I carried a folding knife every day from the very first day of school to the very last. Today a piece of typing paper could give someone a paper cut, so its out...
What happened so that when someone sees a gun now, 30 people pisz their pants and another 30 faint?
I'm thinking some people need to gain perspective. There was no danger to anyone, but some nervous junior nellie runs first thing and tattles, mostly to enjoy the power it gave her (even if male, that's a female thing to do); the rest of us, overloaded with estrogen it would seem, applaud, reinforcing antisocial behaviour.
And some little guy who wanted to show off the new toy he got for his birthday gets to stay home for at least a year, maybe forever.
'Real' weapon
Frome a previous post: "At no point was the student body in danger. At no point was there ever a threat of violence or intent to cause harm. Had a real weapon been brought to school or there had been threat of violence, the school lockdown procedure would have been triggered, as well as the emergency school alert system to notify parents immediately."
Ummm, a pellet gun IS a real weapon. Ask any squirrel in the neighborhood... Or my friend who lost his eyesight in one eye because of a BB gun.
OMG...the whole student body was in danger!!!
oh, wait, it never left his backpack and he never pulled it out nor was anyone at any point in any danger.
Yet, parents are freaking out about it? Its a pellet gun for pete's sake, we used to bring SHOTGUNS, DEER RIFLES, crossbows, on the bus to school for show and tell in grade school and noone thought anything of it.
It's only a big deal if one person freaks out, and then the whole world freaks out. I suppose that parent that is freaked out also wants the kid kicked out of school for one year too, eh?