JOPLIN, MO. ? A 13-year-old boy who fired a single shot from an assault rifle inside a Joplin middle school was charged as a juvenile Tuesday in the bloodless shooting as school officials grappled with how to provide security in the face of a national wave of schoolhouse gun violence.

The boy was charged with first-degree assault, armed criminal action and making terrorist threats. The Jasper County juvenile office, which brought the charges, said it was talking with a prosecutor about possibly charging the boy as an adult. If convicted as a juvenile, the boy’s sentence could range from in-home detention to incarceration lasting no longer than his 18th birthday.

The student fired one shot from an assault rifle Monday into the ceiling of Memorial Middle School, police said. Nobody was injured and the boy left after his gun jammed, police said.

The boy was quickly detained by police. He was being held by juvenile authorities pending a court hearing set for 9 a.m. today, the juvenile office said.

Nearly all students returned to the middle school Tuesday. Only 50 of the 690 enrolled students did not attend, in line with a normal day, a school district official said.

Police officers and patrol cars were stationed nearby but largely out of sight to avoid frightening sixth- through eighth-grade students at the school, police Sgt. Curt Farmer said.

“There were no reported incidents or problems,” Farmer said.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt speaks to the media Monday outside Joplin, Mo., Memorial Hall near Memorial Middle School following a shooting at the school. Blunt is promoting an Oct. 19 online telecast to discuss school safety.

Jim Coburn, president of the Joplin Board of Education, said the shooting left residents wondering what to do about school violence. “With what we’ve seen just in the last two weeks, you have to say that it’s obviously a little bit larger than any individual school district,” Coburn said.

The district needs to look at new ways to secure its 13 elementary schools, three middle schools, high school and vocational school, he said. “But does it end there? I would say the answer is no. What’s going on in the country that it’s happening now and where do we look for answers to that?” he said.

Joplin’s schools do not have metal detectors or a permanent guard on each site. There is one full-time safety officer who moves among schools and several drug enforcement officers.

None of those officers was at the middle school when the shooting happened.

Instead, two administrators confronted the boy after he had pointed the gun at students and teachers and tried to talk him into surrendering the Mac-90 rifle.

The boy fired once into the ceiling, then tried to fire again, but the gun jammed, police said. Principal Stephen Gilbreth said he herded the boy out into the street, where he was detained by police.

Supt. Jim Simpson praised administrators for confronting the boy despite the danger. He said the district’s emergency safety plans worked well, with the school going into lockdown to make sure kids were kept out of the halls and police were called when the shooter was spotted.

But there will inevitably be a discussion now about whether more security is needed, school officials said.

Coburn said he has heard mixed messages from parents so far, some happy with the existing safety plans and others saying schools need metal detectors and security checkpoints.

“That will be a discussion the board will have, I’m sure, and we’ll just have to judge what our community wants their schools to be,” Coburn said.

Coburn said security checks would require an “almost overwhelming” number of staff. The high school, with about 2,000 students, has kids coming and going every hour to classes at the vocational school across the street.

Gov. Matt Blunt is promoting an Oct. 19 Internet-based telecast to Missouri schools and emergency responders to discuss school safety. Although the telecast was announced after Monday’s school shooting in Joplin, a Blunt spokesman said Tuesday that it already had been arranged in response to recent fatal school shootings in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Colorado.