As a former behavioral consultant, I have sooo many questions about the first grade school shooter trial. The first being why the civil trial is happening before the criminal trial. But I caught snippets of the civil trial this week and it had me scratching my head and wondering so many things.

I am going to go back to opening statements and start from the beginning of the civil trial to understand more, but so much of what I have learned so far makes absolutely no sense from the school standpoint.

A first grader with a history of aggressive behavior returns to school from a 2-day suspension for throwing his teacher’s phone. There are murmurings from other students that he has a gun in his backpack. Teachers alert the Assistant Principal (AP) who says to wait to search his backpack until his mother arrives at school. On that same day, he shoots his first grade teacher. Thankfully she survived.

Here are my questions and thoughts as someone who has written Functional Behavior Analyses (FBAs), Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs) and in some situations, School Safety Plans.

School Safety Plans are written to ensure the safety of the student, his peers, and school staff. I am guessing since the case against the school district and school was dropped and there are only charges to the AP, there was some type of written plan in place. So those boxes got checked off as being completed.

Every School Safety Plan I have ever written or been a team member on has the FIRST point of contact at the school check the student’s belongings… not just the backpack, but coat, pockets, etc. Who that first point of contact is depends on how the student gets to school. But regardless, before the student enters the school building an “all clear” is given to the members of the School Safety Plan. I have even written into BIPs that the student could earn points for bringing only materials needed for school, as a way for the student to start off the day in the positive if nothing inappropriate was found in his belongings.

In this situation, they were given information that there might be a gun in his backpack, and it was not immediately searched. If the AP was concerned about checking the back without mom’s permission, at a bare minimum the bag should have been removed from the classroom and held with either school admin, resource officer, or counselor.

But let’s go back to when the student returned to school after a suspension. I used to write in BIPs that a sort of debrief should happen when a student returns to school after a suspension. This conversation should obviously not happen with the person the aggressive event was towards, but instead a neutral party the student feels comfortable talking to.  Maybe a former teacher, admin, specialist teacher, or even the custodian. The debrief walks the child through what happened and gives him better tools to use in the future. Think of it this way, if he never connects the event with why he was suspended, there is no lesson taught about not repeating the behavior again. I never used language like “good or bad” but instead “expected and unexpected.” For example, when you do something that is unexpected, it makes people feel uncomfortable around you. All to say, to return to school with no conversation about the suspension was a lost opportunity for the student.

In some reporting I read, it mentioned that the parents were coming to school with this child but were not at school the day of the shooting. Another headscratcher. Schools cannot require parents to come to school with their child. All adults in the classroom are required to have criminal background checks and be employees of the school or serve in some formal volunteer capacity approved by the school board. Now I have seen situations where the parents are in denial about school behavior where administration asks them to come and spend a day at school to see what the behavior looks like. I have also seen situations where parents are asked to chaperone their child on field trips if behavior is a concern.

I read there is a history of aggressive behavior from this child, his teacher was in her 20s and inexperienced. Most schools I worked in would not have placed a student with this history with a novice teacher. I do remember reading the co teacher was a veteran teacher, but I am not sure she was in the classroom the entire school day. This novice teacher was set up to fail from the get go

Maybe we will learn more in the criminal trial about the formal supports and safety plan that were in place for this child?  Or maybe this student was in the process of being evaluated for services? That process is long and arduous with lots of paperwork, but it is that way to ensure that teachers are providing appropriate interventions and accommodations in the regular education setting, and so that there is not an overrepresentation of minorities in special education…. But that discussion is for another blog post.

This situation was a horrible and completely preventable school shooting. Thankfully the teacher survived but with lasting scars for the rest of her life. And she is no longer a teacher. A profession we desperately need in our world right now.

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