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Parents question district after student brings gun to Harper Woods High School
Parents say they weren't told that a student had brought a gun to Harper Woods High School last week. The gun was found in a backpack at the school.
HARPER WOODS, Mich. (FOX 2) - Parents in the Harper Woods school district are upset after a student brought a gun to the high school last week and the district didn't tell them.
Harper Woods police publicly reported the incident on Monday, five days after a staff member found the gun in the student's backpack at Harper Woods High School.
"It’s almost like they’re waiting for something worse to happen before they address with the parents of the district," said Kelli Wereley, a parent with students in the district. "It Just doesn’t seem like the students or the staff are a priority in terms of protection."
According to the police report, an employee found the weapon and marijuana in the student's backpack after the teen and three other boys were seen with a vape pen in a bathroom May 31. When the employee tried to take the teen to the principal's office, he ran away from the school. He was later arrested at his parents' home.
The police report said the student got into the school through a side entrance.
"I do know that the staff at Harper Woods High School has been requesting for a certain door to be fixed. The alarm on the door hasn’t worked, and they’ve been requesting it since the fall," Wereley said.
Wereley learned about the firearm being brought to the school from a neighbor who has a student at the school.
"They are very upset. They did not receive any letters or phone calls or any communication regarding this," she said.
FOX 2 reached out to the school district for a statement, but it did not respond before this story aired.
The Michigan Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators said in a statement that "We want to know why the school was never in lockdown, especially with unknown whereabouts of this student. We want to know why staff and families first learned about the seriousness of the situation via media reports rather than from school officials. We want to know why staff reports of broken doors, threats, and more are being ignored consistently."
Wereley and other parents, school staff, and community members plan to question the Harper Woods School Board on how the administration handled the situation in terms of communication. The meeting is Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the high school.