Teacher Abigail Zwerner will not be returning to the elementary school where she was shot next fall. There seems to have been some confusion about what happened. An attorney for Zwerner suggested she was fired but the school district replied that she resigned.

An attorney for Abigail Zwerner, 25, accused the Newport News School District of firing her in an interview with Norfolk news station WAVY-TV. But Michelle Price, the spokeswoman for the district, said in a statement that Zwerner had emailed officials in March saying she wanted to resign, and school officials confirmed that in subsequent correspondence. Zwerner taught at Richneck Elementary School.

“I don’t think you can read this any other way than you’ve been fired,” Zwerner’s attorney, Jeffrey Breit, said in the interview. “And that’s what she thinks. She doesn’t understand it; there’s no other communication.”…

Price disputed that characterization in her statement.

“Ms. Zwerner notified the Human Resources Department that she was resigning from her position as a teacher for NNPS on March 13, 2023,” Price said.

The HR department quoted her March email saying she wanted to resign so it looks like that’s what actually happened here.

Zwerner has filed a $40 million lawsuit against the school district and the district has been arguing in its own court fillings that the injury she received is already covered by the school’s workers compensation system. In essence the district is arguing that gunshots are a normal part of a teacher’s job.

“One cannot assess the state today of education-based employment in the United States without paying attention to the problem of violence in its classroom,” the motion says, calling this an “unfortunate reality.” Although teachers today see themselves as “the first line of defense” when students attack each other, the motion says, “teachers themselves are common targets of violent behavior by students.”…

“Plaintiff was clearly injured while at work, at her place of employment, by a student in the classroom where she was a teacher, and during the school day,” the school board argues. “Teaching and supervising students in her first grade class was a core function of Plaintiff’s employment. Thus, Plaintiff’s injuries arose out of and in the course of her employment and fall under Virginia’s Workers’ Compensation Act[.]”

That’s their argument and they are sticking to it. Meanwhile, as Jazz pointed out earlier today, Deja Taylor, the mother of the 6-year-old shooter pleaded guilty yesterday to two federal charges related to the purchase of the gun. The gist is that she filled out a form when she made the purchase which included a box saying she was not a drug addict. But when her house was searched after the shooting, police found a bunch of marijuana in the trash. She has since admitted to being a heavy user. Because she pleaded guilty, both the prosecution and the defense agreed she would be sentenced to 18-24 months for the crime.

Also worth noting, she (or her attorney) appears to have lied about how the gun was kept at home.

James Ellenson, an attorney for Taylor, had previously said the 9mm Taurus was safely secured on the top shelf of Taylor’s bedroom closet with a trigger lock attached. He said it was unclear how the boy got hold of the weapon before bringing it to school.

But federal prosecutors wrote in a statement of facts filed with the plea deal that investigators found no lock box, trigger lock or trigger lock key during a search of Taylor’s residences following the shooting. Authorities did find a firearm barrel lock in a trash bag that had been filled a few weeks before the shooting at one of Taylor’s homes, according to the statement of facts.

In addition to the federal charges, Taylor is still facing state charges of neglect and child endangerment in Virginia. That seems appropriate under the circumstances. Contrary to this story we had in the headlines yesterday, I don’t have much sympathy for her. Maybe if mom didn’t spend most of her time getting high she’d notice things like her 6-year-old son taking her gun to school.

But it’s a shame none of the people at the school who failed to find the gun despite receiving three warnings about it are going to be joining her in prison. Their absolute failure to do their jobs ought to cost them personally. Instead, the school district will pay out a bunch of money for their negligence.