Teacher Abigail Zwerner sent emails about 6-year-old girl’s behavior before shooting

A Virginia teacher who was shot by her 6-year-old student warned administrators about her behavior, including allegedly pointing the middle finger at a classmate and shoving another, and said she was ‘uncomfortable’ when he returned to her class .

Teacher Abigail Zwerner reported two disturbing incidents involving the boy in emails to her superiors on Nov. 22, less than two months before he allegedly shot her at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, according to documents obtained by 13News Now.

Zwerner said the boy gave the middle finger to a classmate on October 11, and a month later ran into “a classmate while running around the classroom” and then pushed the student to the ground.

“To date, I don’t feel comfortable with him returning to my class today…,” she wrote in an email to then Principal Briana Foster Newton and then Associate Principal Ebony Parker.

According to another Nov. 22 email obtained by the news outlet, Parker suggested scheduling a meeting with the boy’s father to discuss “behavioral difficulties” and “take steps to support” the troubled student.

An hour before the shooting, Zwerner reportedly wrote to a loved one that the boy had a gun in his backpack.

After the incident, the boy’s family told the county that he “suffered from an acute disability and was under the care of a school where his mother or father attended school with him and accompanied him to lessons every day.”

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They said the week of the incident “was the first week we weren’t in class with him. We will regret our absence on this day for the rest of our days.”

News of the email correspondence came after Foster Newton’s lawyer said she was not told that a student had a gun on the day of the shooting.

“It continues to be reported that unidentified school administrators knew that a 6-year-old had a gun at school on January 6 and simply didn’t act,” lawyer Pamela Branch told reporters last week.

Mike Caudill

Mike Caudill

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“Ms. Newton was considered one of those administrators; however, this is far from the truth,” she said. “The fact is that those who knew that the student had a gun on the premises that day did not tell Ms. Newton about it.” .

Newton and Parker both resigned after it was revealed that administrators had allegedly been warned three times that day that the boy was armed.

Zwerner’s lawyer, Diane Toscano, said school officials alerted administrators that the boy was armed, but nothing was done.

She said Zwerner plans to sue the school district over the “totally preventable” shooting.

Despite being punched in the chest and arm, the heroic teacher still managed to get her students out of the classroom before being rushed to the hospital.

The Virginia Senate passed a resolution praising Zwerner for her bravery.

The resolution reads: “Despite life-threatening injuries, Abby Zwerner took her students to safety in another room and was the last person to leave the classroom where the shooting occurred; no student was harmed,” and then “alerted the school administration for help,” according to the publication.

The boy’s mother bought the 9mm pistol legally and was not charged with a crime, authorities said.