RICHMOND, Va. -- During the Richmond School Board's first meeting since a mass shooting outside of Huguenot High School's graduation, board members took up a heated discussion on gun violence and safety protocols.
Though the discussion was not listed on the agenda for Tuesday night, board member Kenya Gibson requested the conversation, which was approved by her fellow board members.
“As a district, we are falling short, and failure at this point looks like loss of life," Gibson said. "I am scared."
On June 6, police said 19-year-old Amari Pollard shot and killed Huguenot graduate Shawn Jackson and his stepfather Lorenzo Smith outside the Altria Theater.
Richmond Police said Pollard had an ongoing feud with Jackson for more than a year and that there were troubling warning signs on social media of an incident occurring.
Pollard was a former student of Richmond Public Schools, and Jackson was on homebound services leading up to his graduation, meaning he was learning virtually. RPS said this was not due to disciplinary reasons, however, school officials have not publicly explained the reasoning for homebound.
"The issues are growing increasingly problematic. I mean, I do not have words," Gibson said.
While Gibson's sentiments came on the heels of the graduation day shooting, she referenced many other safety concerns that have impacted RPS this past school year including a student who was shot in the parking lot of George Wythe High in April, loaded guns discovered in schools, a person shot and killed in the student dismissal line of Westover Hills Elementary in October, and a student shot at a bus stop in September.
Gibson proposed hiring an auditor that would focus on ensuring safety procedures are followed across the district.
"The audit team plays an important role. They are the district's checks and balances, and it is glaringly obvious that there are things that are not getting checked," she said.
Then, Gibson asked her colleagues to weigh in with their own ideas.
Board member Jonathan Young pitched expanding the scope of offenses that would qualify a student to be reviewed by counselors, social workers, or law enforcement for threat assessments.
“It seems to me that a very logical place to begin relates to threat assessment teams and provide for more threat assessment team reviews," Young said.
Board member Dr. Shonda Harris-Muhammed said she wanted to address the ongoing concerns she has related to safety processes, but first, she wanted a better understanding of the June 6 shooting.
"I deserve, not just as a school board member but somebody's wife and somebody's mother, as well as the hundreds of individuals who were present, to know what happened. Why did it happen? And who will be held accountable for what happened? But we first have to be brave enough to understand why did the events occur on June the sixth?" Harris-Muhammed said.
Board member Mariah White suggested that RPS doesn't directly acknowledge gang activity impacting schools and students.
“We talk about how we don’t want them going prison to pipeline, but that’s where it seems like it’s going," White said. "There's retaliation. We know it’s gangs. We can't hide it as adults and teachers and staff. We know what's going on in our schools, and we're trying to hide it.”
Other board members including Liz Doerr, Nicole Jones, and Dawn Page said the district cannot solve a community problem like gun violence alone.
“This is a multi-faceted issue, and yet once again, schools are being blamed for all the problems in the world and being asked to fix all the problems in the world," Doerr said.
"We also have to be mindful that this should not be a reactive conversation. This is a conversation that should be happening on a regular basis because these are the situations that our young people are dealing with every day," Jones said.
Jones added that she'd like to see suggestions and recommendations from Superintendent Jason Kamras' administration on the incident before making policy decisions.
Dr. Harris-Muhammed noted that Kamras has 30 days from the incident to complete the division's internal investigation into the event, separate from law enforcement's investigation.
Page mentioned several times that she wanted to avoid "hasty decisions" in response to the tragedy.
"What goes on in the neighborhood, the community spills over into school, so I do not want to make a hasty decision," Page said.
Gibson, raising her voice, fired back at Page.
“We must make a hasty decision. We have had a student die, and we are going to sit on this stage and say I’m not going to make a hasty decision?” Gibson said.
Still visibly upset, Gibson then made a motion for the board to hire a safety auditor.
“We as a board must make sure those protocols are followed," Gibson exclaimed.
Only Young supported the motion. It was voted down by the rest of her colleagues.
Superintendent Kamras did not take part in the board's discussion on gun violence and safety.
The board and Kamras entered a closed session Tuesday night to discuss student records related to the Huguenot graduation.
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