Pocketknives, tasers and guns.
These are a few of the items found on Richmond County students while in school so far this school year, which began Aug. 4 for elementary school and Aug. 8 for all other grades.
But unless you’re a parent at one of the schools in question or know about the portal where Richmond County uploads the data, you won’t know about the incidents. And these reports will only end up in the media if the media sends a formal open records request.
“Our process is to notify families with children where there are incidents at a school. When we receive requests for information from media about school incidents that do not identify students by name (which creates a FERPA violation), we respond with the letter/ notice that was sent to our families. After our families have been notified, we will include an upload of letters sent to families regarding school incidents to our Open Records Portal,” according to Lynthia Ross, chief public information officer with the Richmond County School System, in an email.
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In addition to the letter citing the Aug. 26 incident of Jahkhi Wimbley, 17, taking a loaded 9-mm Glock to the Hephzibah-Laney football game, other letters in the portal include a child bringing a “pocket tool with a small knife blade” to Belair K-8 on Aug. 24; another child with a “bullet and rounded-tip butterfly trainer knife to school” at Pine Hill Middle in Hephzibah on Aug. 10; a taser with a T.W. Josey student on Aug. 25; and a pocketknife at Westside High School on Aug. 29.
Not only does the portal house letters sent home about weapons, but it contains letters related to other concerns such as a case of a Blythe Elementary School student being diagnosed with hand, foot and mouth disease and a T. Harry Garrett Elementary School pupil with MRSA.
The “portal puts it all in one place,” Ross said during a phone conversation. “Everything is there.”
The portal does not contain any incident reports related to the letters – only the parent letter. Reports must be formally requested, she said, and if it’s required by law to provide the report when requested, it will be provided.
While many of the incidents located in the portal took place earlier in the month, most of the documents for the school year thus far were not uploaded there until Aug. 29.
To access the portal, go to https://richmondcountyschoolsystemga.nextrequest.com/documents.
