A young child found a syringe at Rod Kelley Elementary

When 6-year-old Isaiah Lujan got into his mother’s car Thursday
after school, she noticed him clutching something tightly in his
fist. When his mom, Dina Lujan, asked Isaiah what he was carrying,
the boy unfolded his hand to reveal a hypodermic syringe
– complete with plunger and the protruding point of a broken
needle.
When 6-year-old Isaiah Lujan got into his mother’s car Thursday after school, she noticed him clutching something tightly in his fist.

When his mom, Dina Lujan, asked Isaiah what he was carrying, the boy unfolded his hand to reveal a hypodermic syringe – complete with plunger and the protruding point of a broken needle.

Dina freaked out.

“I pulled it out of his hand, and asked him ‘Where did you get this?'” she said, her voice breaking as she recounted the unsettling circumstance.

When her son, a first grader at Rod Kelley Elementary School, inquired what it was, Dina told him it was used to administer medicine.

“I didn’t say the other thing,” said Dina, who said she called family, her doctor and the school’s secretary in the minutes that followed.

“You hear it on the news, but you never expect your kids to come up on anything like that,” said Isaiah’s grandmother Abby Lujan, who’s lived in Gilroy her whole life and has never seen anything like this. “It really concerned us, especially now that they have to go to the doctor.”

Abby, disturbed by the fact her grandson has to be tested for HIV and Hepatitis as a precaution, thinks the dangers of such items – along with what they look like – is something that should be taught in the classroom.

Rod Kelley Principal Luis Carrillo said a hypodermic syringe finding its way onto campus is a first, but late-night foot traffic and loitering has been an issue because the campus isn’t secured by a fence.

“The thing is that people have access to the school after-hours,” he said, noting the campus at 8755 Kern Avenue gets a lot of grafitti tagging. “And so that’s a big part of the problem we have.”

Carrillo said custodians do a sweep of the school every morning, sometimes finding liquor bottles, beer cans and graffiti.

A fence would be nice, he said, so long as it doesn’t make the school look like a prison.

Incoming funds from the Measure P general obligation bond might be used to build a fence.

Passed by Gilroy voters in 2008, the $150 million bond is for updating and modernizing GUSD schools.

Kirsten Perez, director of Fiscal Services for GUSD, said the school board has allocated $5 million toward modernization projects at Rod Kelley from Measure P funds.

“That’s maybe something we can take a look at to see if there’s enough money to secure a fence … it’s something we should consider,” said Carrillo. “I know the parents have wanted that as well … hopefully we can at least address it.”

A fence might not shut out all the littering problems, but Isaiah’s grandma, Abby Lujan, thinks it could have saved her family quite a bit of trauma.

After the incident, Dina said her son kept telling her he was sorry, and that he didn’t know what the item was.

“He found it by the cafeteria, near a bush in the middle of campus,” said Dina. “He said ‘Mom, I could see it, it was just laying there, so I picked it up.’ ”

For the rest of his day, he kept it in his backpack, and took it out during recess.

Isaiah told his mother that he and other kids played around with the syringe by putting it in their nostrils and joking it was a nose trimmer.

Sgt. Chad Gallacinao of the Gilroy Police Department, who said a police report was not filed, explained finding a needle without suspect information is a case that would be documented, but not investigated.

“I believe it’s important – especially when it comes to our school areas – the police are notified so we can see if there’s any kind of trend of problems in those specific areas,” he said.

Gallacinao said GPD would provide extra patrol to try to deter the use of illegal narcotics in the area, but that generally “that area around the school is not known to have a lot of violent activity occurring.”

Abby said she thought of notifying the police, but didn’t.

Perez said the district’s maintenance department spends 12 man-hours on average dealing with vandalism after every two-day weekend, and 10 to 20 hours after longer weekends and holidays.

“I can’t say I know the principal, but I know Carrillo is really good about informing the kids on what to do if they find anything dangerous,” said Gilroy Police Officer Cherie Somavia, who formerly served as school resource officer for GUSD for five years.

Somavia has seen a little bit of everything from knives to condoms.

“I know they’ve had problems with people loitering,” she said of Rod Kelley, “and have taken preventative measures to keep that from happening.”

She said the backside of Rod Kelley’s campus is easily accessed and totally hidden from view.

GPD used to get a lot of calls about people drinking, smoking and riding their skateboards on campus, Somavia said.

She cited Glen View Elementary and El Roble Elementary School, which have fences that stay locked when school is not in session, as examples where vandalism has been reduced.

Isaiah told his mom he initially broke part of the needle off since it was crooked. He said he “kind of” poked his finger, but not to the point where blood came out.

As a measure of precaution, Dina took Isaiah to a disease specialist at Valley Med in San Jose Tuesday afternoon for a blood test. Abby’s great-nephew, who was also playing with Isaiah, went to Kaiser Permanente Dec. 16 in Gilroy for a blood test.

It’s frustrating that Isaiah’s discovery went unnoticed, Abby said, especially since the 6-year-old admitted he was playfully chasing other kids around with the syringe while waiting to get picked up after school.

“He didn’t show it to any adult on campus,” explained Carrillo, who was investigating the situation Friday.

He said students are taught to report directly to a teacher if they come across something questionable or unordinary. “Otherwise we would have dealt with it immediately. I don’t know if he was thinking it was a toy.”

As for providing details to children on what constitutes “out of the ordinary,” Carrillo said that’s a double-edged sword.

“You’re showing them what the items are, and then parents don’t want the kids exposed to that kind of thing,” he reasoned. “We still want to protect their innocence.”

After speaking with Carrillo, Dina said Isaiah is facing possible suspension or trash detail for not going directly to a teacher.

“I feel he shouldn’t have to do either of those,” said Dina. “(Carrillo) said my son should know better than to keep something like that, but my son didn’t know what it was.”

Abby insisted keeping the kids safe should be a priority, even if it means evolving the teaching approach to a subject of this nature.

Her family wanted to report the circumstance, she said, with the hope it may prevent something similar from happening again.

“Yesterday was traumatizing.”

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