By Samantha Valentino
Published: Aug. 1, 2024 at 5:22 PM EDT
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - Over the past four years, WKYT has reported on numerous incidents of guns making their way into Fayette County Public Schools.
- March 11, 2024 - Teachers raise concerns after student brings gun into FCPS high school
- November 15, 2023 - Loaded gun found at Lexington high school
- October 27, 2022 - 15-year-old student arrested after lockdown at Lexington high school
WKYT filed an open records request for all reports of weapons on FCPS campuses from the start of 2020 through March 29 of this year. We received just shy of 80 records. They detail incidents involving 16 guns on school campuses. Seven incidents happened in the last year and a half of our requesting period. In some cases, district officials weren’t aware a gun was on the property until hours or even days later.
Police records say in January 2023, a staff member at Takes Creek Middle School notified campus police that a student reported seeing another student with a gun leaving the Creek Madness pep rally the night before. In an interview with administration, records say the student admitted to bringing a BB gun to Creek Madness.
In October 2023, administrators at Winburn Middle School received a phone call saying a student possibly had a gun on campus. According to the police report, the call came in after dismissal had already begun. Later, a tip was submitted to the district’s Stop TipLine, naming a student they believed to have brought a gun to campus. Officers from FCPS and the Lexington Police Department interviewed the student at his home. The report says he admitted to bringing a “BB gun” to school.
In November, multiple students at Crawford Middle School reported seeing another student with a gun in the building. Police records detail their reports. One said the student threatened her with the gun after refusing to hug him. She says the boy told her, “I should really shoot you.” According to police records, the district didn’t know about the gun being brought into the school until the next day.
A photo of a student posing with a gun in a Henry Clay High School bathroom was sent to the district’s Stop TipLine in February. That tip came in after 4 p.m. when students had already been dismissed for the day. Police records say officers interviewed the student at their home that night. The report says the student admitted to having the gun but claimed it was a pellet gun. However, the report later says, “There was a strong belief the gun was real.”
A similar incident was reported at Lafayette High School less than a month later. In March, police received a photo of a student sitting in a classroom holding a gun in one hand and a loaded magazine in the other. Records from the district’s police department include a text from one officer to another, reading, “This is redacted…I searched him on Wednesday after the bus driver said he brings a weapon to school every day.” The report goes on to say that suspicions of this student being armed at school started on Wednesday after administrators were told an employee had beliefs that they “had been armed at Lafayette High School on at least one occasion. The student was searched, but nothing was found. The report says the student brought a gun to school in his backpack and through metal detectors the day after being searched. The student told police he removed the gun from his backpack during his second block class, which is when another student snapped the photo, which was later sent to police.
Jason Rothermund is a retired special operations sergeant with the Lexington Police Department. He says school safety has always been an issue.
“The problem usually occurs when we hear about it, but there’s a lot of times we don’t hear about stuff,” said Rothermund.
Rothermund says school safety is a multi-faceted issue, but communication plays a large part in keeping everyone safe. Oftentimes, students are the best source of information regarding potential threats.
“They’re the first people to get eyes on it. They’re talking to the people that supervisors don’t interact with always, or the students are all sitting at the lunch table,” said Rothermund. “I always say it starts from the bottom up, but it is a two-way street. Kids and employees have to feel safe when they report an incident, and I think that it is imperative.”
Additionally, Rothermund says poor communication between a school district and parents can be harmful.
“I understand the frustrations. I absolutely do, and I think that while we’re trying to figure out, you know, certain things with school safety, it doesn’t necessarily negate the fact that we have to be very open in communication with these incidents,” said Rothermund.
Data from the Kentucky Department of Education shows Fayette County isn’t alone when it comes to weapons making it into schools. The state’s Safe Schools Annual Statistical Report shows there were 1,350 behavior events involving guns or deadly weapons during the 2022-2023 school year. This is a 99.7% increase from the number reported five years ago. Throughout the school year, KDE says 62 handguns, 101 other firearms, and 5 rifles were reported at schools across the state. According to records obtained by WKYT, eight guns were reported on FCPS campuses during the 2022-2023 school year.
“One of the things that we’re very much aware of is that post-pandemic, you know, immediately post-pandemic, gun issues on around school campuses were up by about 300%. So it unfortunately has become something normal that we don’t want to be normal,” said executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, Mo Canady.
Canady says with this rise, there have been conversations about adding metal detectors to schools across the country.
In 2018, FCPS announced its 10-point safety plan. It was what they called a $13.5 million school security plan, funded through a five-cent property tax increase. The plan included installing metal detectors in all of the district’s middle and high schools. The district’s high schools have since been equipped with metal detectors, but none of the middle schools currently have them.
WKYT asked FCPS why the middle schools have yet to receive metal detectors. We received the following statement from district spokesperson Dia Davidson-Smith:
“The safety and security of our campuses is paramount. Equipping our Middle Schools with metal detectors is still part of our 10-point Safety Plan. FCPS established these guidelines for the implementation of security measures, like metal detectors and SRO’s in our schools and on our campuses. With regards to Middle Schools, our Safety Advisory Council is still in the process of reviewing options for our middle schools. With new legislation recently passed by the General Assembly, we must look at the new law and see how we can comply, while still moving forward with established districtwide plans. Our Districtwide Advisory Council remains tasked with evaluating current and future resource streams that will help implement this in the district.”
We followed up for clarification as to why there has been a delay and received the following statement from district spokesperson Dia Davidson-Smith:
“Since the announcement of the FCPS 10-point plan in 2018, we have been working steadily and with deliberate intention to ensure the safety of all students and staff who work and learn on our campuses. The money raised by the nickel tax rate supported many efforts to improve safety but did not fund all of the associated costs. Therefore, FCPS budgets have been covering the additional costs to ensure the 10-point plan continues to move forward with measures to include additional metal detectors.
It is important to note the numerous accomplishments that FCPS has made in the way of safety in just the past six years. Every school now has a double-entry vestibule with a two-entry buzzer system to control the flow of who comes into and leaves the school building. Security cameras have been installed or upgraded in every FCPS building, allowing law enforcement to monitor the happenings inside and around all FCPS properties. FCPS now has 83 sworn police officers on staff, a direct result of the safety plan and funding options.
Other safety improvements, which are a direct result of the nickel tax and FCPS general funding, include an upgrade to the crisis communication plan, improved locking systems on doors, replacement of old doorways, the use of RAPTOR as a visitor management system to log visitors to our buildings, metal detectors and safety ambassadors to check everyone entering FCPS High School buildings, social/emotional learning with the addition of 80 district mental health specialists, the creation of the Second Step Middle School SEL program, trauma training, and behavior support training. We continue to monitor, upgrade, and look for more ways to improve. All of these efforts are aimed at training staff, from bus drivers to teachers and administration, to make our school district a shining example when it comes to our approach to student and staff safety. This is an evolving process, and we are not finished; it just takes time to do everything the right way.”
Canady says when it comes to keeping guns and other weapons out of schools, there is no one answer.
“You can’t say we’re going to put metal detectors in, and that will keep weapons out. Metal detectors are one layer of that process, only one layer,” said Canady. “If you’re going to use them, you’ve got to use them consistently and in the right way.”
In March, WKYT reported on an incident where district officials say a gun made it through metal detectors at Lafayette High School. At the time, we spoke with a Lafayette teacher who asked to remain anonymous. They told us that after the incident, their students said the security ambassadors responsible for conducting bag checks at the metal detectors don’t always check bags thoroughly.
“There’s nothing removed from their bags,” the teacher said. “They don’t unzip all the zippers. They don’t check lunch boxes. They don’t check pencil pouches.”
The following week, the teacher told WKYT, “There are guns in this building every single day, guns and knives. What they do is they put them in their groin, and then if the metal detector goes off and they get wanded, then they pull their phone out of their pocket and show the phone and say, ‘Oh, it’s my phone setting off the metal detector.”
“So if guns are still getting in, we want to know how’s that happening? Are we failing with the metal detectors? Or are we not doing the other things? Are we not creating that culture and climate where we don’t leave perimeter doors unsecured during the day?” said Canady.
Records obtained by WKYT show that metal detectors and School Security Ambassadors have proven to be effective in finding weapons in some cases.
- In February 2023, a gun was found during a regular check of a student’s backpack at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.
- In November 2023, also at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, a student set off metal detectors. His bag was searched by a School Security Ambassador. They found a loaded gun inside.
Canady says school safety is a community effort. He stresses the importance of creating a culture where everyone watches for potential threats, such as a door being left propped open or a student with a weapon.
“Taking the opportunity to educate students and again, create that culture and climate that says, hey, somebody has a gun at school, I’ve got to tell a trusted adult about this, and many times when that happens, it leads to something we call avoidant school violence,” said Canady.
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