Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 5, 1995                   TAG: 9510060013
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN                                LENGTH: Medium

PUPIL UNDER PROBE

Pulaski County school officials, who declined to identify the student, have turned the matter over to police. The suspension will remain in effect until the police investigation is finished.

If the allegation is found to be true, the student will be expelled for at least a year under the county School Board's new policy, which became effective with the 1995-96 school year.

"The current weapons policy that went into effect this year requires a minimum 365-day expulsion for bringing a firearm onto school property," said Karen Clymer, coordinator for pupil personnel services.

Some students said they saw the sixth-grade student with a firearm and possibly some ammunition at school Tuesday afternoon. Parents reported those claims to school officials Wednesday morning. The officials notified police, who are making the investigation in cooperation with the school system.

"That's really all we know at this point," Clymer said. She said school officials have not determined the type of weapon.

This is only the third firearm problem that Pulaski County schools have experienced in more than a decade, and all three have happened in the past seven months. The other two happened during the last school year.

In April, a school bus driver found an unloaded pistol in a book bag left on the bus by a 9-year-old fourth-grader from Draper Elementary School. The boy was suspended for the rest of the school year.

In May, a Northwood Elementary teacher found an unloaded BB gun in a second-grade pupil's book bag. That student also was suspended for the year, even though school officials conceded that he had never been in trouble before and may not have understood the seriousness of the incident.

The county has a home-schooling program that it makes available to students removed from regular school.

The two incidents during the 1994-95 year prompted school officials to issue a statement on weapons in schools, noting that bringing weapons onto school property is a felony and "the public needs to understand that the presence of weapons in schools in a serious violation."

School administrators arranged to have a representative of the county Sheriff's Department speak in classrooms on the dangers of firearms in schools and their illegality.

This summer, the School Board toughened its policy even beyond the mandatory 180-day expulsion required by a bill passed by the 1995 General Assembly, making it an automatic 365-day expulsion in Pulaski County.