The Virginia school district where a 6-year-old shot his teacher is claiming they have no legal culpability, as the teacher was shot at her workplace.

Abigail Zwerner of Richneck Elementary was “clearly injured while at work, at her place of employment, by a student in the classroom,” the Newport News School Board said in response to her lawsuit, asking for its dismissal.

Zwerner was shot in the hand and chest on January 6 by a first grade student in her class. After spending two weeks in the hospital and undergoing four surgeries, she filed a $40 million lawsuit against the school district for gross negligence and failing to act on multiple warnings the day of the shooting.

In its filing Wednesday, the school board claimed that Zwerner's injuries should fall under her worker's compensation, arguing that facing violence from students should be considered part of a teacher's job, and that Zwerner can't reasonably expect students to pose no danger.

“While in an ideal world, young children would not pose any danger to others, including their teachers, this is sadly not reality,” the filing read, via NBC.

According to Zwerner's attorneys, the boy “had a history of random violence," and had just a year prior “strangled and choked” his kindergarten teacher. They also pointed to instances where he was "chasing students around the playground with a belt in an effort to whip them," as well as cursing at staff and even breaking his teacher's phone after throwing it.

“Teachers’ concerns with John Doe’s behavior [were] regularly brought to the attention of Richneck Elementary School administration, and the concerns were always dismissed,” the lawsuit states.

Zwerner said that she told an assistant principal that day that the boy “was in a violent mood,” and had threatened to beat up a kindergartener. Two students also reported seeing the boy with a gun, but a search of his backpack by school administrators found no weapon, and the assistant principal concluded his “pockets were too small to hold a handgun and did nothing."

Zwerner was approved for worker's compensation, which provides up to 500 weeks of pay and lifelong medical care for injuries "without having to prove negligence." Zwerner has since rejected the offer.

After the shooting, the school board seemingly acknowledged its missteps when it voted to oust Superintendent George Parker III. The assistant principal, Ebony Parker, resigned two weeks later, and the principal, Briana Foster Newton, was reassigned to another school.

The boy will not be prosecuted for the shooting, but his mother has been charged with felony neglect and reckless storage of a firearm.