From The Denver Post: Colorado lawmakers and parents on Wednesday decried the state’s system for reporting school violence after a fatal shooting at Arapahoe High School did not appear in a statewide discipline report intended to give parents a snapshot of campus safety.
The December shooting is still fresh in the minds of parents, students and community members. But discipline data for the 2013-14 school year released by the Colorado Department of Education to The Denver Post offer no indication that student Karl Pierson killed senior Claire Davis and himself at the campus.
Littleton Public Schools Superintendent Scott Murphy said late Wednesday that the district reported the shooting to the state and to the federal government. But Murphy said he was not sure in which category of violence the shooting was reported.
Discipline data released this week by the state show Arapahoe had 107 incidents, but none were for the most violent categories of first- and second-degree assaults, dangerous weapons or other felonies. The district reported one incident as a third-degree assault, which is a misdemeanor in Colorado.
Schools are required by law to report incidents of violenceannually to the Colorado Department of Education. Those reports are based on students who are punished, so some community members worried that because the gunman at Arapahoe shot himself and was not disciplined, the school district may not have included the shooting.
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