A Texas school superintendent has resigned after a third grader left a found firearm in his bathroom.

Rising Star, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – Texas superintendent resigned after district parents found out a third grader left a firearm in a school bathroom.

District staff confirmed that Rising Star Independent School District Superintendent Robby Stuteville submitted his resignation on Monday.

The Rising Star ISD board held an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss Mr Stuteville’s resignation. This took effect immediately and took appropriate action. Rising Star ISD representatives said Wednesday morning that Marty Jones, the current principal of Rising Star High School, has been appointed interim superintendent of the school district.

Last week, former superintendent Stuteville admitted that a third grader found his gun in a bathroom at Rising Star Elementary School in January. The child immediately informed the teacher without moving or touching the weapon.

Stuteville discussed the incident with Nexstar’s KTAB and explained that both he and the principal practice open carry on campus.

While using the restroom, he removed the gun and placed it on the stall, where it was left for about fifteen minutes until the student found it.

The child’s parents said the student returned to the classroom and notified the teacher, who then sent a second student to the bathroom to confirm it was a real gun.

“There was no danger other than the obvious,” Stuartville claimed. He went on to say he was “proud” of the student and praised his actions after finding the firearm.

“This is one example of guns in schools,” says Stuteville. “Regardless of who is responsible, they are quite dangerous and children need to be educated to be aware of unusual placements of weapons and out of place items.”

Local police say they were not informed of the incident until last week, even though the gun was found in January. Rising Star Police has launched an investigation upon being notified.

The local police chief confirmed that an investigation into the initial reporting failure was also underway.

Parents in the school district gathered at an emergency meeting of the school board Thursday night to discuss the incident. The general consensus was, as one parent put it, that Stuartville wasn’t acting “maliciously,” but they weren’t happy being kept in the dark for so long. .

“Why did we parents have to know it through the news? It just makes it look like the school is hiding something,” said one parent.

Parent Giovanni Mata, who recently moved from Uvalde to Rising Star, told KTAB that he was the father of a student who was allegedly sent to check if there were indeed guns in the bathroom.

“So the teacher asked another child, my son… ‘Can we go see if it’s a real gun?’ Why send the child?” Why not send someone else? asked Mata.

“Put yourself in my shoes,” he added, reflecting on the tragic shooting near his former home in Uvalde. “That man killed all those people in three minutes—only he in three minutes. And that gun [in the Rising Star bathroom] Left for 15 minutes. “