He is now banished from every public school in the United States for the next 11 months.
The 12-year-old former Hellgate Elementary School sixth-grader must also submit to regular urine testing and take anger management classes. His parents, Terry and Sheryl Huetter, say they lack both the education and time to home-school him, and don't have the money to send him to private school.
"I try to practice my skateboard, but it's kind of boring when you're alone," Tyler said of his days. "I sleep a lot because I'm bored."
From the inside of Hellgate Elementary, Superintendent Doug Reisig sees one of the gravest threats his school can face.
"The gun involved looked exactly like the Beretta pistol carried by the sheriff's department deputies," Reisig said. "If a child pulls that gun out on the playground, the officer's reaction would be to shoot immediately. And that endangers everyone in the school.
"My No. 1 priority is to provide for the safety and security for the 1,200 children here," Reisig continued. "Any child in that situation (of finding a gun) makes a choice. Should a child have chosen that path (of bringing the gun to school), my responsibility remains with the children who follow the rules.
"We have a social contract with parents to keep their children safe. I would always make the recommendation to remove the child for the full calendar year," he said.
No one involved disputes the basic facts of Tyler Huetter's case. On March 17, while walking to his bus stop in the morning, he found the BB pistol on the ground. He also discovered it contained a small drug pipe in the magazine.
"I saw the gun - it was pretty cool - so I picked it up," Tyler recalled. "The pipe fell out. I was being stupid and I put it back in. I put it (the gun) in my backpack and went to school."
He put the backpack in his locker. During the day, he got nervous about what would happen if the gun were found. A fellow student offered to stash it in her locker. Tyler said he gave her his locker combination, and she moved his backpack to her locker. The gun was never displayed.
But word got to a teacher that there was a gun in the school. Administrators locked down the middle school building and searched the sixth-grade lockers, according to the school incident report provided to the Huetters. After finding nothing, they searched the eighth-grade lockers and found the backpack with the gun and the pipe. Both Tyler and the other student were taken to the office and their parents were called.
Tyler was charged in Missoula Youth Court with misdemeanor counts of criminal possession of a weapon on school property and possession of drug paraphernalia. His parents said he was sentenced to a year's probation, ordered to submit to regular drug testing and to take anger-management classes.
Some may question the technicality of a BB gun being considered a "firearm." According to state and federal law, Missoula law enforcement experts are pretty clear that Reisig correctly read the rules. Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg said it appeared to meet the legal definition of "a weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive," as stated in the Montana Code Annotated.
Perhaps more importantly, Missoula County Sheriff's Lt. Rich Maricelli said the gun looked real enough that an officer would legitimately assume it was a deadly weapon. In particular, it appeared that someone had filed off the standard bright orange muzzle tip that most toy guns and BB guns have to help law enforcement distinguish them from more dangerous threats.
Tyler and his parents say he has never used drugs, and had no criminal record other than a trespassing charge for walking along Montana Rail Link train tracks. But again, the law is straightforward about possession of drug paraphernalia.
The other student, who also was disciplined, declined to be interviewed for this story. Both students had hearings before the Hellgate Elementary School Board of Trustees. In this part of the case, it is federal policy more than state law that governs the expulsion. Reisig said the federal Gun-Free Schools Act commands school districts throughout the nation to adopt the 12-month expulsion standard or risk losing their federal funding. But more importantly, he said, he wants it clear that bringing a gun to school is one of the worst things a child can do. The punishment comes accordingly.
"It's been pretty drastic for Tyler," his father Terry Huetter said. "I agree - he should have been kicked out. But I don't have the education to teach him at home. And we don't have the $4,000 to $8,000 a year they want at Valley Christian (Elementary School) or St. Joseph's (Catholic Elementary School). And we can't get any books or lessons from the school."
Terry Huetter said he asked Hellgate Elementary and Missoula County School superintendent officials for help with learning materials for Tyler but was turned down.
State law says that the weapons violation does not prevent a school district from "offering instructional activities sanctioned by the district to a student who has been expelled." But Reisig added he has a direct duty to provide for the hundreds of children still in school and no duty to offer special resources to a child no longer enrolled. The law makes exceptions for some students in special education programs but puts the responsibility for educating expelled "regular" students squarely on the parents.
Missoula County School Superintendent Rachel Vielleux said her office has no resources to share, either. She said she advised the Huetters about home-schooling networks and private schools, but is unable to do much beyond that.
That means Tyler Huetter may be on his own until next March, when he's eligible to return to public school. It's uncertain what requirements for continuing education or testing he may have to meet to re-enroll.
In most criminal situations, the defendant winds up in strict supervision: jail, home arrest, a treatment center, or other facility. But ironically, an expelled student is banished from the supervised, structured world of school and left to fend for himself or herself.
"You can't leave a little kid like that home all the time," Terry Huetter said. "You do that to a kid around here, and you pretty much turn them into dope slingers or girls turning tricks. A year goes by and you pretty much know what you're going to have on your hands."
Vielleux said she had no good answer for the dilemma of expulsion. Especially since the tragedies at Columbine and Red Lake, school districts have trumpeted the no-guns policy. Hellgate Elementary parents are required to sign their children's student handbooks to ensure they've read them. And the consequences are clearly laid out.
At the same time, it's well-known that the chances of a child successfully continuing education after expulsion are slim.
"At some point, we're going to say, 'We have to give up on that child in order to help other ones,' " Vielleux said. "But then we know: There they are, out in the community unsupervised, and you know how much trouble young kids can get into."
Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)
squirrel wrote on Nov 25, 2008 2:57 PM: