GILROY
– Three Gilroy High School students charged with making a death
threat against a teacher and causing a three-hour campus lockdown
will not be back at school before the end of the year.
GILROY – Three Gilroy High School students charged with making a death threat against a teacher and causing a three-hour campus lockdown will not be back at school before the end of the year.
The two girls and one boy remain in Juvenile Hall three weeks after the May 14 incident, according to Kurt Kumli, deputy district attorney who supervises juvenile prosecution. It is not clear when they will be released, but even if they were released today, school officials would want them expelled from GHS.
“They’re in very serious trouble with the police and with us, and we’re going to go the full legal limits of it,” said Roger Cornia, safety officer for Gilroy Unified School District.
At 9:29 a.m. May 14, Gilroy police say a girl masking her voice to sound male called 9-1-1 from a stolen cell phone and told the dispatcher she had a gun, was at GHS and planned to shoot her cooking teacher.
The three students were arrested about six hours after the call was placed.
If the students are released before the end of the year, they would be placed on an automatic five-day suspension. Then, Cornia will interview the students to determine if the district can pursue expulsion.
“Legally, before we take the next step, we need to interview the students, and that hasn’t happened yet,” he said. “I don’t see any problem now, but I have to go through the proper steps.”
It could take 10 days after the students are released to schedule an expulsion hearing. The hearing itself is usually completed in one day, Cornia said.
The students may be expelled for violations of Education Code Section 48900, specifically for making a threat against a person and causing a major disruption of the school. Cornia said he will review the section referring to terrorist activity to determine if that charge could apply, as well.
Once students are expelled from GHS, Cornia said, they may attend Community Day School or another program, depending on their needs.
While the students are facing harsh consequences for their actions, the high school staff is receiving praise for its quick and level-headed thinking in dealing with the fallout after the incident.
The school board on Thursday awarded GHS and district staff – including teachers, campus supervisors and administrators – a certificate of recognition for what Superintendent Edwin Diaz called going beyond what was required to ensure student safety.
“You had a tough job, not knowing how long you were going to be in there, not knowing what was going on outside and … you had to be model citizens,” Principal Bob Bravo said.
Teachers managed the situation inside locked-down classrooms, while campus supervisors and administrators went so far as to potentially put themselves in harm’s way, Bravo said. They visited classrooms to alert students of the lockdown and left the safety of buildings to help police with their investigation.
Bravo, who was out of the district that day due to an emergency, said he had full confidence in school staff and the leadership of Assistant Superintendent Linda Piceno, when his pager read, “Police have locked down your school.”
“Even when I saw the page, my heart didn’t skip a beat,” he said. “I knew we have a great staff.”
