Teacher emails reveal ‘behavioral difficulties’ in 6-year-old Virginia elementary school shooter

NEWPORT NEWS, Virginia. Newly obtained documents shed light on a 6-year-old boy’s behavioral problems months before police said he deliberately shot and killed his first grade teacher at Newport News Elementary School.

As a result of the shooting at the Richneck Primary School, the teacher, 25-year-old Abby Zwerner, was seriously injured. Zwerner made progress in his recovery and has since been discharged from the hospital.

13News Now received documents from the school department at the request of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In our inquiry, we solicited emails between Zwerner and the school administration regarding reports of behavior and concerns about the boy who fired the shot.

The documents include dozens of emails between Zwerner and the school administration during the school year.

CONNECTED: Newport News Public School Staff Advice Line Focuses on Transparency

In an email exchange dated November 22, Zwerner informed then principal Briana Foster-Newton and then assistant principal Dr. Ebony Parker of two incidents involving a boy in her class.

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

“To date, I don’t feel comfortable having him back in my class today…” Zwerner wrote in an email.

In another email dated November 22, Parker suggests scheduling a meeting with the boy’s father to discuss “behavioral difficulties” and “think of something to support” the boy.

In a statement from the boy’s family after the shooting, they said he was “suffering from an acute disability and was under the care of a school whereby his mother or father attended school with him and accompanied him to lessons every day.”

The family said the week of the shooting “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.”

The school department did not confirm the information in the family’s statement.

13News Now received emails between Zwerner and school officials as students completed their first week in class after the Jan. 6 shooting. They have shown resilience, adapting to additional security measures such as walk-through metal detectors. and transparent backpacks.

CONNECTED: “It was an ordinary day” | Parents happy with first day at Richneck Primary School

Effective January 6, Foster-Newton was transferred to the Newport News school division and Parker retired.

On January 25, Zwerner’s attorney, Diane Toscano, announced her intention to file a lawsuit against Newport News Public Schools. Toscano claimed that Richneck’s teachers and staff warned administrators three times that the student had a gun and threatened people on the day of the shooting.

On Feb. 2, a lawyer representing the former Foster-Newton said she was not one of the administrators alerted to a 6-year-old student with a gun on campus.

Of the dozens of Newport News Public School emails included in response to a FOIA request, some are not related to the boy. Keep checking 13NewsNow.com for continued coverage as we look to confirm more information in this evolving story.