On January 6th, first grade teacher Abby Zwerner was interrupted mid lesson after being shot by one of her students in Newport News, Virginia. Though this situation is rare, school violence continues to hit new highs despite school administration’s efforts to minimize, and ultimately, prevent it. Despite the many new initiatives being introduced, such as the “see something, say something” movement across schools following the horrors that happened at Sandy Hook, bullying, verbal and physical violence, as well as cyberbullying are continuing to persist, affecting the student body, teachers, and school administration.

According to the school administration, the child’s backpack was searched after there was a tip regarding a possible gun being carried by a student, yet somehow, the gun was missed during inspection, resulting in a critically wounded teacher and a community of traumatized students, teachers, and staff, and yet another case of school violence that could have ended fatally. 

This incident has raised many questions from school administration. 

“How is a student that young able to have access to a weapon? How is the student able to conceal it, bring it to school,” Ramon Moss, Carnegie Vanguard High School’s principal asks. 

As a principal and former teacher, Moss makes sure to take preventative measures to minimize and effectively combat these incidents as much as possible, to make sure they don’t continue to progress or worsen.

Moss also thinks that teachers should feel completely comfortable regarding administrative responses to eradicate possible threats as soon as possible.

“As a teacher then I would certainly approach the administration with the backpack and probably also with the students, maybe separately in order to ensure that I felt comfortable that an adequate search was made. I know that not all elementary schools have law enforcement or police officers at least on the campus all the time, so I would want to ensure that I was comfortable with the outcome. And especially I would ask if I could be present during the search and especially if someone else is doing the searching,” Moss said.

After Richneck Elementary School’s administration failed to address concerns about the possible gun inside the students backpack, acting with urgency amongst school administration continues to be a vital factor.

Moss emphasizes timeliness as a preventative measure when dealing with altercations amongst teachers and students in schools. 

“Having a visible presence among administration and our campus officer and not just the visible presence, but attempting to establish positive rapport with different students, and efficiently and effectively dealing with incidents, as soon as they happen. I think it kind of sets the tone for students knowing certain parameters of what they shouldn’t do,” says Moss.

 By addressing incidents in a timely manner, the chance of escalation of conflict and further progression of it could decrease.

Though Carnegie has a fairly low school violence incident rate, other schools don’t. Students anticipate school fights every week, as well as some form of verbal or physical altercations. 

“I would say at least once a week is how often (fights) occurred. Sometimes there were two, maybe three times a week, it was crazy,” says Zack Ellis, a former Carnegie student, when referring to another HISD school.

The admin responded immediately, but not effectively to each of these frequent occurring attacks.

When these fights were seen by the school administration, students participating would be punished with detentions and suspensions, but this would rarely stop the violence.