CLEVELAND, OH — Parents at a Cleveland school where a third-grade student was found with a gun on Tuesday, say they are still searching for answers following a meeting between district administrators and families of Oliver Hazard Perry School students on Thursday.
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The district did not allow a News 5 crew into the meeting, but parents who did attend expressed frustration with Cleveland Metropolitan School administrators.
“It was no explanation of why he brung it in or nothing,” said Shayleta Cheney, mother to first and third graders. “It was just he was in there, passing the gun and bullets around to other kids.”
It’s an incident that hit close to home for Chaney and her sons, who lost their father to gun violence in 2021. She said at one point, the boy with the gun tried to put it in her son’s pocket.
“And my son said he backed away like this and said no, don’t do that,” said Cheney.
Most parents said they only learned what happened through a letter sent home with their elementary schoolers Tuesday. In it, the school’s principal asked parents to remind children that “if they see or are shown a firearm, they should immediately inform an adult.”
Cleveland City Councilman Michael Polensek said that’s exactly what happened in this case, but called what happened next, “outrageous.”
“A little girl reached out to the assistant principal and said there’s a gun in the building. He told her to go sit down,” said Polensek, who attended Thursday’s meeting.
Eric Gaines said that little girl was his eight-year-old daughter, Cherish.
“She is the one who said something when she saw something and she was totally ignored,” said Gaines.
Cherish said the gun was purple and black and that she saw students passing it around the lunchroom.
“It was in other people’s shirts and stuff,” she said.
She said after the assistant principal told her to sit down, she tried to get someone’s attention.
“I yelled his name, and I said 'it’s a gun there,'” Cherish said.
That’s when her dad said a teacher intervened and grabbed the gun.
In a statement, a CMSD spokesperson said the incident happened “because adults did not follow our safety protocols,” and said the district’s investigation “identified a lapse in required screening procedures.”
“CMSD is investigating, God help us,” said Polensek.
The councilman, who chairs the council’s safety committee, said parents fear a cover-up by the school district.
“We want answers. We deserve answers. We demand answers,” said Polensek.
When asked if he’s gotten answers, Polensek said “Hell no!”
“We’re going to get to the bottom of what happened here and if heads have to roll, then so be it,” said Polensek.
Parents who attended the meeting said school officials only told them the gun the student had was reported stolen.
They remain in the dark as to how it got into a third grader’s hands and into the school building.
But the impact of what happened is real.
“It breaks my heart right now because right now, she's afraid,” said Gaines.
“I want to go to private school,” said his daughter.
Gaines said school leaders betrayed the trust he once put in them.
“We give our children to these school systems in hopes they will take care of them, teach them, train them and show them how to be productive citizens but they get ignored,” said Gaines.
