Gilmer High School was locked down last Wednesday morning.
As classes were set to get under way, a student informed an assistant principal that “she had seen a gun and some ammo in another student’s backpack,” according to GHS principal Carla Foley.
The student told administrators she did not know the alleged student and that he had entered a classroom. The school was locked down at 7:54 a.m., and Foley informed superintendent Dr. Shanna Downs, who in turn called 911.
“Once the sheriff’s deputies arrived, we went up to that classroom and took the kids out and did a search and didn’t find anything,” Foley said. “In the meantime, the student (who informed an assistant principal) was changing her story a couple times to ‘Well, I think it was a picture I saw and I’m not really sure. I think someone just told me they had seen it.’
“So we didn’t find anything in the search of that classroom. We came back down and she reported that it was actually another student who told her about the gun and ammo.”
The alleged student was present in the classroom that was searched. A review of camera footage helped piece together the events, and the student was questioned by deputies.
“A student we saw on the cameras that morning was coming in and out of the bathroom and had gone into that same classroom. (Assistant principal) Todd (Gearhart) had gone up to get that student, and when he came back, that student had a bullet on him. He had a 9mm bullet on him.
“Through a pretty long interrogation with the sheriff’s office, finally what we can piece together is that he found the bullet when he was cleaning his bedroom and brought it to school. He took it out of his pocket and showed it to a student and made a comment about using it some day at school. On our camera you can hear the other student say, ‘Well let me know when so I don’t come to school that day.’”
GHS informed the student’s parents of the situation. They “reassured” GHS administrators the alleged student has no access to guns, though there are guns in their home, according to Foley.
The student in question, as well as others who breached the code of conduct, were disciplined.
“In our code of conduct, we have a ‘failure to report.’ There were four or five students who knew the student had the bullet with him and only the one student reported something even though what she reported wasn’t exactly accurate. She reported hearsay from one of the other students,” Foley said.
“Those students who got a failure to report have consequences. The student who had the bullet, he’s got school consequences, as well as sheriff’s office consequences. He disrupted our learning environment for about an hour and a half.”
GHS was cleared and the lockdown ended at 8:51 a.m. The school’s investigation wrapped up Wednesday afternoon.
The timing of the situation allowed the school system to detect a possible flaw in their lockdown procedures. Foley noted that about 30 students arrived at GHS during the lockdown ahead of the start of classes at 8 a.m. They were allowed in the building and remained in the front office.
“I have concerns about students coming in the building while we’re doing a lockdown situation,” Foley said. “We’re having conversations with emergency management in the school district and looking at what our best procedures are with this. Do we have students stay in their cars or leave to go back home? We have those beacons all over the campus. They’re on the light poles, and kids can see them blinking red if we’re under a lockdown. I don’t want to put kids in a situation where they can be hurt.”
Foley added in conclusion, “The communication and the cooperation with the sheriff’s office was great. I feel like everybody knew what they were supposed to be doing. The school system, my staff, sheriff’s deputies, we all worked really well together getting to the bottom of this and really figuring out exactly what was going on.
“Every time we have one of these situations we’re always thankful that it’s nothing too serious.”