NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Former Richneck Elementary School assistant principal Ebony Parker appeared in court for the first time Thursday, facing felony child abuse charges.
The charges stem from January 6, 2023, the day a 6-year-old boy shot his first-grade teacher, Abby Zwerner.
A grand jury handed down eight felony child abuse charges, each of which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
The grand jury also released a 31-page report that not only outlines the 6-year-old behavioral problems leading up the the shooting, but a number of security issues that may have contributed.
First, Richneck Elementary did not have its own school resource officer (SRO).
The report says Richneck shared an officer with another school. The SRO spent the morning at one location then moved in the afternoon. Additionally, the officer didn’t have a work phone, and there was no phone number posted for teachers to call in case of an emergency.
“The whole point of a school resource officer isn’t necessarily the obvious, that you have a trained police officer standing in the school,” says retired police captain and board-certified security consultant Michael D‘Angelo. “It’s the long-term value, like establishing rapport with the staff and getting to know the students. Those are the kinds of things that can lead to prevention, and you can’t have that with an officer that’s splitting their time.”
In a press conference Thursday, Zwerner’s legal team claimed, without a full-time officer, the assistant principal alone was responsible for searching for threats.
“It was their protocols that require that an assistant principal or the school resource officer be the individual who search the person if there’s a threat,” said Zwerner’s co-counsel Kevin Biniazin. “What the grand jury report reveals is, they didn’t follow their own rules.”
The report also states some second-grade classrooms had no doors or permanent walls. In the case of a lockdown, students would leave their classrooms and walk down the hallway to a safe room.
“I applaud the grand jury for outlining the faults and identifying what should have been done here, but there is a component where security experts should be brought in, law enforcement should be brought in,” said D’Angelo. “That’s where the responsibility falls. Teachers should not have to worry about coming to school every day and worry about their own safety.”
Virginia law requires public schools to have at least one lockdown drill within the first 20 days of each school session. The grand jury report revealed there is no documentation of any lockdown drills at Richneck that school year.
According to the report, some classroom emergency buttons didn’t work, some teachers didn’t have walkie-talkies or a consistent way to communicate with the front office and the front door buzzer had broken weeks before.
The grand jury writes if parents picked up their kids early, they had to pound on the office door to get the staff’s attention. There was also no system in place to make sure people who walked into the school had a legitimate reason to be there.
“The piece we see here that didn’t work is a parent couldn’t get in for a legitimate reason, but more importantly, law enforcement didn’t have immediate access to the campus and with that, you might as well not have the system at all,” D’Angelo explained.
The Newport News Public Schools Board (NNPS) released the following statement after the grand jury report’s release:
“We thank the Special Grand Jury for their Report on the investigation of the January 6, 2023 Richneck Elementary School Shooting and for their recommendations. We have implemented a number of positive changes since this incident and will continue to do so in the future.
Safety of students and staff remain a top priority for the School Board.”
NNPS representatives tell 13News Now the following improvements have been made since the shooting:
Richneck Elementary School has two weapons detection systems that all students and visitors must pass through each day.
There are two full-time SROs at Richneck.
Students are required to wear school-issued, clear backpacks.
Permanent walls and doors have been installed in second-grade classrooms. Other physical enhancements have also been made.
Richneck Elementary has a full-time therapist on-site, in addition to two school counselors.
NNPS underwent an independent security assessment.
NNPS strengthened its ties with the Newport News Police Department (NNPD). School security team members meet weekly with members of NNPD.
NNPD officers are part of an elementary school lunch buddy program.
The grand jury report also highlighted several improvements:
Broken emergency buttons in classrooms have been fixed.
Teachers have an emergency system called “Raptor” on their phones. They can press an alarm in the app to notify everyone in the building.
Staff went through comprehensive safety training for a variety of emergencies.