Public Schools Are “Clueless” About Guns

By Scott Rubush

FrontPageMagazine.com | December 7, 2000
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SCHOOL STUDENTS in California’s San Fernando Valley may be the targets
of ridicule in Alicia Silverstone films, but it’s the Valley’s school administrators who
have shown themselves to be really “clueless.”

Especially when it comes to handling “weapons incidents.”

In one incident last week at Telfair
Elementary School, the “weapon”
turned out to be no weapon at all.
Instead, nine-year-old Vincent Olivarez
was nearly suspended from the
Pacoima, CA school because he was found in possession of snapshots taken while
he and his brother fired guns at a shooting range, under the supervision of their
aunt, a certified police weapons instructor.

According to the boy’s family, administrators told Vincent that the pictures were
“inappropriate.”

The family says that a substitute teacher saw the pictures lying in young Vincent’s
bookbag and confiscated them.

Later, when Vincent returned from lunch, he was summoned to the Principal’s
office, where a school nurse interrogated him about the pictures.

According to the Olivarez family, the Principal’s secretary then called Vincent’s
mother, Anita, and told her that her son had “extremely disturbing and offensive
photographs.” The secretary refused, however, to divulge what sort of pictures
they were.

She simply told Anita to show up at the school at 2:30 pm for a meeting. The boy’s
mother said she could come at 5 pm. At that, the Principal’s secretary threatened
that she was going to call the police to question the boy about the photographs, and
that he would face suspension.

Angrily, Anita Olivarez said she was coming immediately to pick up her son and
that no one was to speak with him.

Officials of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) later overruled the
school, and decided not to suspend Vincent. The pictures have now been mailed
back to Vincent’s home.

Still, for Vincent and his family, the situation is hardly resolved. The fourth-grader
remains frightened by the way school officials behave towards him, and his family
now is weighing the feasibility of transferring him to another school. “He was
distraught by the whole thing. He doesn’t feel safe there,” a relative told
FrontPageMagazine.com on Wednesday.

LAUSD describes its policy as one of “no tolerance” for weapons possession.
Officials refused to comment on whether Vincent’s pictures violated that policy.

The “zero tolerance” approach has swept the nation, in response to America’s
increasingly lawless public schools. But the incident at Telfair is just the latest in a
series of incidents that have left many parents wondering if “zero tolerance” goes
too far.

In March, four New Jersey kindergarten students were suspended for playing
cops-and-robbers.

In September, a third-grader was suspended from a Green Bay, WI school for
possessing a key chain with a small replica of a gun.

Weeks later, an 11-year-old girl was suspended from a school in the Atlanta
suburbs when administrators ruled that a chain attached to a wallet depicting the
Tweety Bird cartoon character was too long, and might possibly be used as a
weapon.

In October, another San Fernando Valley pupil was suspended when he brought
an “illegal and dangerous explosive device” - a firecracker - to school.

Anti-weapons Puritanism has come under fire from all quarters. Conservatives have
criticized the approach as a “gun-grab.” Some leftists have asserted that the
policies unfairly target minority students.

For their part, administrators stonewalled over the Olivarez incident, but remained
defensive of their no-tolerance policy. The principal at Telfair Elementary declined
an interview with FrontPageMagazine.com, and LAUSD officials refused to speak
about this specific case or whether the incident would appear in Vincent’s
permanent record.

But Jim Gamboa, an LAUSD spokesman said of zero-tolerance policies in general
that “when it comes to safety, it’s hard to overreact.”

Vincent’s family contends that, in this case, the school clearly did overstep its
bounds.

Relatives say that the affair has been a crushing blow to the self-esteem that
Vincent developed at the shooting range. According to the aunt who supervised the
shoot, Reynalda Bodnar, Vincent had never fired a weapon prior to the recent
outing. “He’s very shy, very passive,” said Bodnar. “He finally got comfortable to
the point where he would even hold a gun, and now this happens.”

Bodnar, who works as a law enforcement official just east of Los Angeles, said
that safety concerns motivated her to teach Vincent how to handle guns. “It
prevents accidents from happening,” Bodnar said of firearms instruction. “It’s a
curiosity-killed-the-cat situation. If kids don’t understand how to handle a firearm,
there can be deadly consequences if they find one.”

Although Vincent is just nine years old, Bodnar said that the youngster had already
developed a negative image of guns. Bodnar suggests the public schools are to
blame: “When we were at the shooting range, Vincent said to me, ‘guns are bad.’
And I said, ‘who’s teaching you this garbage?’ He’s in LA County. I’ll tell you
who’s teaching him this garbage.’”

(The Olivarez family invites supporters to contact Telfair Elementary School
principal Janice Steinbeck - (818) 896-7411 - to express their views on this
matter.)