Resigns after 3rd grader found his gun in bathroom

The superintendent of a Texas school district has resigned a month after a child found his gun in an elementary school bathroom, a school district official said.

Robby Stuteville had worked for the Rising Star Independent School District for more than three decades, serving as its superintendent for about the last two years, said Monty Jones, the district's high school principal.

On Jan. 20, Stuteville accidentally left his gun in a bathroom at Rising Star Elementary School, where it was found by a third grade student, Jones said. While he called the incident a “grave mistake,” Jones emphasized that it was “a sad situation” because Stuteville was beloved in Rising Star, a small town southeast of Abilene.

“Rising Star lost a good person,” Jones said. “He was a heck of a superintendent.”

Stuteville could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. In an interview with KRBC, he said his gun was left unattended for about 15 minutes before the student found it.

“There was never a danger other than the obvious,” Stuteville said in the interview.

He added that guns were a “considerable danger” and that the child had done well “to be on the lookout for any unusual placement of a weapon or anything out of place.”

Jones said that both he and Stuteville had the district board's approval to carry guns and that all students had been informed about this practice.

The two men had been carrying guns at school since August, just months after 19 children and two teachers were fatally shot at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in May, Jones said.

With Abilene, the nearest large city, an hour's drive from Rising Star, Jones said, he and other school officials decided to take matters into their own hands to ensure that students were protected. The Uvalde shooting had prompted school officials across Texas to “reassess” safety practices and the role of guns in schools, he said.