Parents, teachers, and staff members crowded Wednesday night's Manhattan Beach USD school board meeting to express anger and frustration over a recent incident of a student found with an unloaded handgun at Manhattan Beach Middle School.

During the standing-room-only public comment session, multiple residents took to the mic to express concern about the timing and the manner in which staff and families were informed, and the lack of a lockdown or shelter-in-place order while the incident was being investigated. 

Administrators acknowledged and thanked parents for their concerns, and assured the crowd that the topic was not closed. MBUSD will hold an MBMS town hall on Monday, April 7 at 5:00 p.m. (with more details to come), said Superintendent John Bowes.

"While this episode is deeply troubling, it is also an opportunity for us to come together as a community," said Bowes. "Your voices and concerns are crucial and shaping our response and strengthening our collective commitment to safety across our district and across our homes, especially as it relates to gun safety."

"It has been an emotional week," acknowledged MBUSD Board President Wysh Weinstein, noting that she has a child at MBMS and another who will be entering in the fall. 

In her earlier career as a teacher, Weinstein told the audience, she had "had those nightmares of being on campus when the unspeakable happens. Believe me when I tell you that we not only empathize, but we are going through this with you." 

The MBUSD team sought to reassure the public that the incident was handled according to current protocols. 

MBPD Chief Rachel Johnson followed with a public comment to the board. "When our PD learned of this incident, our student resource officers immediately sprang into action, working in close coordination with school administration to conduct a comprehensive investigation. Our department continues to investigate and respond, including stationing additional officers on campus following the incident last week," she said.

Weinstein also gave a statement acknowledging the frustration about how little information can be shared due to privacy laws and ongoing investigations. However, in an effort to quash rumors, she said she wanted to emphasize that MBPD’s firearms-detection K9 teams searched Polliwog Park and did not find any firearms or ammunition, and there is no return date set for the student in question.

"While we cannot provide detailed information about this individual situation, we can, again, affirm that California law requires the immediate suspension and mandatory recommendation for expulsion of any student who brings a firearm to campus," said Weinstein. "This is also a process that takes time. Suspensions can be issued for up to 5 days, and they can be extended beyond that time if an expulsion is being considered and it is determined that the student’s presence would cause danger or threaten to disrupt the instructional process. There are many complexities to the expulsion process, including timelines, due process considerations, and evidentiary components, but a suspension can be extended until the matter under consideration is concluded."

However, parents, teachers, and staff members expressed outrage about how the situation was handled, including the fact that a lockdown was not issued, and that staff members were mostly unaware of the incident until after a "This is MBMS" open house night was held that same evening. Many cited the definition of when a lockdown should occur: when "an unknown and potentially dangerous object is found on campus."

"As a teacher, I am responsible for my students' safety while in my classroom and on my campus," said Farah Kamal, a 7th grade teacher at MBMS teacher and a MBUSD parent. "How am I able to do my job to the best of my ability if I am not even aware of the situation at hand? Finding out after the fact is abhorrent and not being able to answer the questions of my students on a daily basis or being able to assure them that we are safe is disheartening."

Kamal added, "We were not prepared to discuss this issues with our students or parents the following day due to the lack of communication. The safety of our children, students, and staff members should be your top priority - not PR."

MBMS Spanish teacher Liz Laffoon read a statement submitted by a 7th grader: "This very student was in my first period class," the student wrote. "I have shared a space with him all year. And to think that such an incident would occur is utterly horrifying. According to some staff members, a report was made early in the morning, only then to be initiated during 7th period. Not only do I share a first period with him, I sit next to him in 7th. To watch him being taken out of class, and then be informed the next day he had a firearm on him, was scary to say the least. I have been participating in lockdown drills since kindergarten. I have endured lockdowns because of an unhoused person near the school campus. So why did we not enter a state of complete lockdown? Why did this drill that has been literally drilled into our minds not be put into action?"

Lauren Galbraith, a counselor on special assignment at MBMS, expressed concern that there was no mandatory staff meeting on Thursday morning following the incident to prepare teachers with the right things to say to their students.  "I was meeting with students all day Thursday and Friday, upset that their teachers were in tears with nothing prepared to say," she said. "They were scared."

MBMS Parent Lana Choi called the fact that parents didn't know about the situation until after the "This is MBMS" event "shameful and appalling."

Parents had been asking for a town hall meeting and had been refused, she said, only learning that evening that a town hall would be scheduled for a Monday night at 5:00 p.m., making it difficult for working parents or parents of athletes to attend, she said.

"If we as organized adults are so easily and casually dismissed and disregarded- How powerless and ignored must our kids feel?" asked Choi.

Note: MBUSD community members who feel unsafe at any time are urged to report the situation to the Sprigeo link.