Matthew Santoni, The Examiner
2008-04-25 07:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

Parents at William S. James Elementary in Abingdon have demanded a public forum to talk about the school’s delay in informing them that two students brought a pellet gun onto a bus last week.

PTA President Nicole Gorsky said she wanted the “town hall meeting” between parents and administrators to discuss why the school denied for two days that the brothers in first and fourth grade brought the gun, resembling a handgun, onto the school bus in a backpack.

Rumors about the danger multiplied as the school denied the incident, parents complained.

“Our concern is, what happens when the next incident occurs?” Gorsky asked. “Now there’s a lot of mistrust.”

Gorsky was among many who first heard of the incident through other parents. When she asked Principal Kim Spence about it, she was told that there was no incident, she said.

The first official acknowledgment that the students had brought the gun to school came Friday afternoon, when an automated call from Spence reassured parents their children faced no danger.

Jay Lloyd, treasurer of the PTA, said he heard about the pellet gun through his daughter but thought the lack of official word from the school implied the incident was minor.

“The school had a habit in the past of making announcements for other, more minor things,” Lloyd said.

 Parents had received an automated phone call from Spence earlier in the month after a student suffered an asthma attack and had to be taken from the school in an ambulance, he said.

In hindsight, the better solution would have been to put out more information to stop rumors exaggerating the risk, Lloyd said.

The school and central administration were starting to respond better to parents’ concerns but still had some distance to go, said Erin Holloway, a parent of three at the school.

The gun fires plastic pellets, but such weapons can still send children to an emergency room, she said.

“The administration lying to us and covering it up — someone needs to be held accountable for that,” Holloway added.

Don Morrison, Harford’s schools spokesman, acknowledged communication could have been better.

 Both students have been disciplined, he added.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com