An Apalachee High School student was arrested for having a firearm on school grounds, the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Wednesday.
A 14-year-old male was taken into police custody Wednesday afternoon and faces multiple charges, including possession of a weapon on school grounds and theft, according to a press release from the sheriff’s office. Law enforcement officers have not received any reports that the student threatened anyone with the gun. Officials did not provide additional details about how the teenager got the weapon on the property or how it was located.
Following the arrest, school is canceled for Apalachee High students on Thursday, a district spokesperson said. The Board of Education will meet at 4 p.m. to discuss “school safety plans” or “policies related to weapons in schools,” according to the agenda for the unplanned meeting. The discussions will take place during a closed-door session.
The arrest comes four months after a 14-year-old student allegedly shot and killed four people at the school in Winder. It was the deadliest school shooting in Georgia history.
Since then, parents, students and staff members have implored the Barrow County Board of Education to implement new safety measures at the school — including at the board’s meeting this week.
District staff members have been researching the viability of different safety and security measures, they said, and plan to make recommendations to the school board later this month. Members of the community had until Dec. 13 to answer a survey about several security changes.
This week, parents and students asked the district to consider implementing clear bag policies or requiring that school doors be locked at all times. They have also advocated since the shooting for the implementation of a weapons detection system.
“With our lives at stake, it’s unacceptable that safety won’t be addressed until the mid-spring semester,” Sasha Contreras, a student who was in one of the classrooms where the shooting took place, told the school board on Tuesday. “Despite my gratitude for the efforts made, the Board of Education’s inaction is becoming harder to excuse.”
Put another way by a parent: “I want you to move and act like you care.”
So far, the school board has resolved to hire an additional eight school resource officers and to put phones in classrooms to aid in communication.
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