ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Guns on school grounds and threats to harm others are a sad reality that school districts must now address to ensure children are safe while learning.

On Tuesday, Albuquerque Public Schools officials confirmed that staff found two guns on the Volcano Vista campus, one of which was loaded.

The male junior from Volcano Vista was arrested and taken to juvenile detention.

According to the district, he is charged with two counts of illegal possession of a deadly weapon on school property.

We also know that this was not the first case of this kind. On September 5, a student was found with a weapon at Valley High School.

The district would like to remind students that there is a zero-tolerance policy in this regard. Students found with weapons on campus may be expelled from campus in addition to criminal charges by the district attorney’s office.

In response to the increase in threats against schools, APS has created an Integrated Supports Team Unit, an idea that originated with a school district in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The whole idea is to assess the threats and develop individualized plans for students, similar to behavioral intervention, before the situation escalates.

“Our unit is deployed daily, so it’s not like everything is a credible threat, but we take everything seriously. We want to make sure we investigate any allegations of a threat on campus. Our team is deployed daily to help school administrators navigate and decipher and determine whether or not it’s a credible threat,” said Shantail Miller, APS’s director of threat assessment.

Here’s how it works: When a student makes a threat in person or online, an administrator can contact this team to conduct a threat assessment.

A reintegration meeting will then be held for the student and his family with a team of administrators and counselors who can determine the reason for these threats.

From there, they can provide resources to students in need and hopefully help them change their behavior.

“There is no one size fits all answer or solution to the things we see. We see kids as young as first grade imitating TV shows or video games and making violent statements,” Miller said. “We have a middle school student who is having a conflict with a friend. There is no one size fits all answer to how we approach a case or resolve a situation.”

This is a new program and has only been around for three months.

The team includes administrators, APS staff, case managers, counselors and a therapy dog. They plan to hire more members to get the children the help they need more quickly.