Parents, students express concerns to district leaders after Central High shooting scare

PHOENIX — Students and parents are voicing their concerns to school leaders after a shooting scare Friday at Central High School in Phoenix.

Police initially received reports of shots fired just before 12:30 p.m. Friday, but did not find any evidence that a shooting took place at the school. After hours of searching the school, Phoenix police gave the "all clear" at about 3:30 p.m.

Phoenix police said Friday night that three people were detained in connection to the shooting scare.

Phoenix Union High School District officials held a meeting Saturday morning to let families express any concerns after Friday's incident.

“What is happening is not OK. I’m here to get an education, not run away in fear,” said a student at the microphone.

Julia Gomez is a parent of two, one freshman at Central High School and a senior at the Phoenix Coding Academy, which went under lockdown as well.

“All I could do was cry,” Gomez said of when she heard of the incident and the rumors that someone had been shot. “You don’t know if that was your child. In that moment before getting back from my son, ‘was it my son? Is it possible that it was his friends that come over all the time that pretty much become your children, too?’”

There was a point in the incident on Friday where students ran off campus after the popping sounds were heard.

The district ended up bringing some students back on campus, which Principal Leticia Avalos admits was not “the best solution.”

“I agree. Once the students are out and we’re in lockdown, anyone out should be out. That is something we will correct. What we did hear though, at that time, that those shots could’ve been fired near the light rail, so we had immediate concerns for the students,” Avalos said. “You’re right, bringing them into the school was not the best solution, we should’ve probably took them to the district office, and we will debrief on that.”

In that instance of students running off, one parent said that could be a reason why a gun was never found. Another parent asked Superintendent Chad Gestson if it was possible a gun could’ve been on campus and that a student took off with it. Gestson said it is possible, however, police say they had federal help with K-9’s that sniff for firearms.

District leaders announced some short-term actions that will be taken, including an increased police presence if needed.

In addition, long-term plans they intend to implement include:

• Take an in-depth look at the incident and strengthen work with the police department
• Continue drills and training
• Encourage more engagement in Phoenix Union's student safety committee
• Continue work on the new Central HS safety committee

Students and parents told district officials of the fear they had to go through during the incident.

The principal says staff and detectives watched surveillance and found no weapons.

Some parents and students are upset that not all backpacks were searched. The principal says they can’t do that citing privacy issues.

"While we have a lot of voices here not happy that 2,000 bags were not searched, I know we have many, many parents that will not be ok with a random child just being pulled," said Principal Leticia Avalos. "We have to have a reasonable suspicion to search a specific child."

“If the parents don’t like their children to be searched, feel free to go somewhere else,” a parent said and the crowd cheered.

While many parents and students expressed their concerns to the district about their response for about three hours Saturday morning, some did say the district did the best it could with the resources it had.

“I think they did what they could, but I think there’s more room for improvement,” Gomez said.

No official actions were taken at the meeting.