Sonora Elementary School administrators alerted parents in an email this past Monday night to an incident involving a student who brought a toy handgun on campus that day, but some parents say they feel the response wasn’t enough given the increasing amount of gun violence in schools across the nation.
In the email addressed to Sonora Elementary parents, guardians and staff, the school’s administration team, including District Superintendent Cheryl Griffiths and Principal Chris Boyles, stated they received a call after school hours from a parent reporting that their child may have seen a gun in another student’s backpack.
The administration team immediately requested Sonora Police to investigate, according to the email sent out about 8:40 p.m. Monday, March 6.
“After a thorough investigation, it was determined that it was a toy gun and that the student posed no threat to campus,” the email stated.
“If we found this incident was an imminent danger to students and staff members, we would have immediately sent notifications out,” the email continued. “We waited until now to inform families of this isolated incident to ensure that we did not disrupt or impede SPD’s investigation. The Sonora Elementary School District prioritizes the safety of our students and staff. We consistently communicate with SPD to prevent incidents from escalating.”
The email also asked parents and guardians to take a moment and speak with their children about bringing dangerous objects, including guns — real or fake — onto any campus.
“If a student is found on campus with a firearm (real or fake), SPD will conduct an investigation, and proper disciplinary actions will be taken,” the email stated.
In addition, the email asked parents and guardians to talk with their students about the importance of telling a trusted adult on campus immediately if they see anything suspicious or dangerous and not wait until they get home.
“Every second counts in a potentially dangerous situation,” the email concluded.
However, some parents reached out to The Union Democrat on Tuesday and said they felt the school’s handling of the incident and communication was inadequate due to heightened fears in the era of school shootings.
Three different mothers also said they pulled their kids out of class Thursday when they were informed that the student who brought the toy handgun had returned to campus.
“I went and picked my kids up from the school and let them know straight as day, I said ‘I do not feel good about my kids being safe here right now,’ “ Jamie Haire, who has a son in second grade and daughter in seventh grade at the school, said in an interview Thursday.
Haire also was the one who brought the child to the school who reported the incident to police. She’s friends with the child’s mother, Chandra Huckabee, who also took both of her kids home on Thursday.
Huckabee said her child is in the same sixth grade class as the student who brought the toy handgun and reported hearing the student also making threats while showing off the toy handgun, though administrators say the investigation uncovered no evidence that any threats were made.
“It’s concerning how it’s being dealt with, because I feel like they are kind of brushing it under the rug and not treating it as big of a deal as it is, be it real or fake,” Huckabee said.
Cassandra Barnes, mother of a third grader and sixth grader at the school, also took her kids out of class early on Thursday.
All three of the mothers say they feel that the school should hold an assembly to directly address the situation with students and remind them of the consequences for bringing weapons, real or fake, to school with them.
“With everything else going on and all the other schools in the U.S., it’s scary,” Barnes said. “I just want the school to do some sort of awareness with the children like, ‘This is what will happen if you bring these things to school, whether it’s a toy or not,’ that you will get expelled or whatever is needed, and to encourage other kids to tell them if it happens.”
Haire pointed to other threats and incidents involving guns that have happened at U.S. schools in recent years, including in Tuolumne County, such as an 18-year-old student who was arrested at Cassina High in January 2020 on suspicion of bringing a loaded, stolen semiautomatic pistol to the school.
On Wednesday, the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office also arrested and booked 18-year-old Calaveras High School student Jeorge Ray Gage, of Rail Road Flat, into jail on suspicion of a felony for allegedly being found in possession of two real knives on campus.
Calaveras County Sheriff’s Lt. Greg Stark said the student was seen with a lighter and taken to the school’s office, where a search of his belongings uncovered the two knives.
“While bringing a weapon to school or a fake weapon to school is a low occurrence event, we take all of these situations very seriously,” Stark said. “We do encourage anybody if they see something to say something.”
Griffiths, superintendent of Sonora Elementary School District, said in phone interviews about the incident this week that she believes school administrators handled the situation involving the toy handgun in an appropriate manner.
Griffiths said they were informed about the incident after the last students were released from school for the day at 2:45 p.m. and immediately launched an investigation in coordination with Sonora Police.
“I truly feel that our staff acted appropriately, and they addressed the situation as soon as they were made aware,” Griffiths said. “Part of the reason I sent this (email) home was to use it as a teachable moment and so parents could have those conversations with their kids.
“It’s not OK to bring real or fake guns to school. It’s also important to report immediately… I would hope they would go to a trusted adult so they could notify, and we could investigate it immediately.”
Griffiths said she is unable to discuss any disciplinary actions related to the incident because information about student discipline is confidential under the California Education Code.
The state Education Code does have a section that states a student can be suspended or expelled for bringing an imitation firearm to school, Griffiths noted.
Griffiths said the investigation found the imitation weapon brought to school was “absolutely not a BB gun” and instead was a toy replica. She said she was only aware of three families who expressed lingering concerns about the incident after the email was sent Monday night, and she doesn’t feel that the situation warrants an assembly.
“It’s our job to de-escalate situations, not escalate them, so I don’t feel it’s appropriate to have an assembly over a toy,” she said. “I think our letter was a good conversation starter for parents to have with their students, while I believe we handled it appropriately and did a thorough investigation.”
Griffiths noted that an on-campus counselor is available for any students who feel they need to talk about the situation, in addition to other counseling services through the AWARE program at the Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools Office.
Contact Alex MacLean at amaclean@uniondemocrat.com or (209) 588-4541.