By Jill Tucker
The San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — A first-grade student took a gun to his San Francisco elementary school Friday, the district’s second such incident in two days, school officials and police said Monday.
Staffers at Cleveland Elementary School found the gun in the boy’s backpack after overhearing children talking about a gun on campus, school officials said Monday. Police and the student’s parents were then called to the Excelsior district school. It was unclear Monday whether the gun was loaded.
“The student said he thought it was a fake gun,” said school district spokeswoman Gentle Blythe.
The boy was released to his parents. and no charges have been filed, police said. The case has been referred to the county’s Child Protective Services.
The incident at Cleveland followed the arrest Thursday evening of a 17-year-old boy who allegedly took a loaded semiautomatic gun to Lowell High School. The student, who is not enrolled at Lowell, was attending night classes to catch up on course credits required for graduation.
Staffers at Lowell investigating the smell of marijuana coming from a classroom determined that the boy was carrying something and called police, authorities said.
After Friday’s incident, Cleveland school’s principal, social worker and nurse went to each classroom to explain the incident to the school’s 300 students and to remind them to tell an adult about any unsafe objects on campus. The school also sent a letter to parents.
The first-grade boy was suspended, and school and city officials will decide what should happen next. The district’s zero tolerance policy regarding weapons on campus typically would require that the boy be expelled.
The two incidents happened a few days before the city public defender’s office is to hold its annual summit on juvenile justice. Public Defender Jeff Adachi said he will highlight results of an informal survey of incarcerated San Francisco youth showing that 28 percent believe it is sometimes or always acceptable to bring a gun to school.
“Unless you shift the culture, a culture that thinks it’s OK to have a gun, it’s going to continue,” Adachi said. “We’ve got to start early. High school is too late.”
Copyright 2008 The San Francisco Chronicle