Board Ruling on Boy With Gun

* Re “Boy, 7, Who Took Gun to School Won’t Be Expelled,” March 14:

Permission to remain in school for gun-toting children of any age for any reason is deplorable and without justification. The creation of zero tolerance is moot if it is not enforced, regardless of circumstances. A majority of school board members, the people we have elected, have clearly chosen to manipulate the rules to enforce their policy only if the punishment fits the crime and the student’s mom and dad aren’t too inconvenienced or upset.

Had the Los Angeles school board members reached a simple decision to enforce the policy already in place, no further discussion would have been necessary. However, now they have put themselves in a compromising position regarding every other gun issue. It’s a position that is without envy, particularly if future issues contain serious injury or fatalities.

By law we cannot insist on expulsion districtwide, but quite possibly we can investigate measures that will effect our cluster. Then we will experience firsthand how the newly restructured district really can work for us. In the near future we will have the opportunity to vote for our district representative. I plan to use that privilege; it may be my only shot!

APRIL L. SANDELL

Rancho Palos Verdes

* The school board members who voted 4-3 against the expulsion of this second-grade student for bringing an unloaded firearm to school, did the right thing. The child and his grieving parents suffered enough and thank God that the gun was not loaded and that the other children turned this child into the administrators of his school.

I believe that you lost one of the main points of this incident. That incident being that other children reported this child to the proper school authorities without being paid a “reward.” That alone says plenty for those other children, their parents and the school administrators of Telfair Avenue Elementary. We need to educate our children about guns and drugs at the earliest age that they are able to understand and reason.

While my heart goes out to the mother of Michael Ensley, a 17-year-old student who in February, 1993, lost his life in a shooting incident at Reseda High School, (I have two children ages 11 and 13 in the LAUSD), you cannot honestly compare the maturity of a 7-year-old versus a 16- or 17-year-old student.

I support Leticia Quezada’s and the other three board member’s decision not to expel this child. The gun industry and the private and public sector need to do more to educate our children about this type of issues before our children, our future and our hope, are destroyed.

JOSE G. CASTILLO

Granada Hills