ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Guns on school campuses and threats to harm others is a sad reality that school districts are now having to deal with to make sure children are safe while they learn. 

On Tuesday, Albuquerque Public School reps confirmed staff found two guns on campus at Volcano Vista and one of them was loaded. 

The male junior at Volcano Vista was arrested and taken to the Juvenile Detention Center. 

According to the district, he is facing two counts of unlawful possession of a deadly weapon on a school campus.

We also know this wasn’t the first case like this. Back on Sept. 5, a student was found with a gun at Valley High School. 

The district wants to remind students that they have a zero-tolerance policy on this. Students found with guns on campus can get expelled in addition to any criminal charges from the District Attorney’s Office. 

With the uptick in school threats, APS has launched an Integrated Supports Team Unit, they got the idea from a school district in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

The whole idea is to assess threats made and come up with individual plans for students, much like a behavioral intervention, before things escalate.

“Our unit is used daily, so it is not to say that everything is a credible threat, but we take everything seriously. We want to make sure we are investigating any allegations of a threat on campus. Our team is being used daily to help school-based administrators navigate through to decipher and determine if it is or is not a credible threat,” said Shantail Miller, director of APS’ Threat Assessment.  

Here is how it works: If a student makes a threat, in person or online, an administrator can go to this team to get a threat assessment done. 

From there, the student and their family will have a re-entry meeting with a team of administrators and counselors who can figure out why they are making these threats. 

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

“There is no cookie cutter answer or solution to the things that we see. We see kiddos as young as first grade mimicking TV shows or video games, and they make statements of violence,” said Miller. “We have a middle schooler who is just in peer conflict with a friend, there is no one answer to give to how we approach a case or the resolution to a situation.” 

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

The team is full of administrators, APS officers, case managers, councilors and a therapy dog. They plan on adding more members to get children the help they need quicker.