Montgomery County school officials are trying to reassure parents of students at Albert Einstein High School that the school is safe.
Parents gathered at the high school Monday evening to address their concerns over the discovery of several loaded guns and the arrest of five students and a 20-year-old man with gang connections that stemmed from a student’s firing of a gun in a boys’ bathroom.
On Monday, the school’s principal, James Fernandez, whom students describe as a strict disciplinarian, said, “Einstein is safe, as safe as any other place in the world.”
In the last week, some parents have raised questions about how well-protected their children are, and they’ve wondered whether Montgomery County schools will do what many in the District of Columbia have already done — raise metal detectors outside their schools to keep weapons out.
County school officials have repeatedly said that’s not the path they’d like to choose. Metal detectors, they said, send a message that schools are fortresses under attack, and that “sets the wrong tone,” Fernandez said.
When the shot rang out in the boy’s bathroom early Wednesday afternoon as one 15-year-old student attempted to sell a handgun to a 14-year-old student with two other teens watching, there was a delay before Fernandez was made aware of the situation. He said Monday that the delay is under review.
Police have said the attempted gun sale may have been prompted by an at-school tussle between two gangs a week earlier. And although police have declined to comment on which gangs, many students say they suspect the Latino gang, MS-13, played a role.
School officials have not yet said what will become of the students arrested in the alleged gun-selling ring.
