A teacher found a gun in a kindergartner’s backpack Thursday morning at Somerset Academy Lakes, according to school and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office authorities.
The student didn’t know the gun was in the backpack, according to a message Principal Clint Duvo sent to parents. He stressed that neither students nor the staff at the Summit Boulevard campus were in danger.
The teacher found the firearm before classes began, Duvo said. The school’s staff immediately moved students away from the area, secured the classroom and called authorities, Duvo said.
The situation was handled “very, very quickly,” said Lynn Norman-Teck, a spokeswoman for the charter school’s Miami-based management company Academica.
Authorities are investigating how the firearm ended up in the elementary school student’s backpack, the sheriff’s office said. It was not immediately known whether anyone will face charges in the incident.
The elementary charter school with ties to Miami rapper Pitbull and a large charter management company opened in 2016 on the campus north of Palm Springs and west of West Palm Beach.
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