Two children were wounded Wednesday in a shooting at a tiny religious K-8 school in Northern California and deputies arrived to find the gunman on the ground near the playground, dead after apparently shooting himself, sheriff’s officials said.

The children, boys aged 5 and 6, were hospitalized in “extremely critical condition,” officials said.

The shooting occurred shortly after 1 p.m. at the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists, a private school in Palermo with fewer than three dozen students. Palermo has about 5,500 people and is about 65 miles (104 km) north of Sacramento.

It was the the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas. The shootings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to doing active shooter drills in their classrooms.

But school shootings have done little to move the needle on national gun laws. Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues.

“My heart is breaking for everyone impacted by this tragedy,” Assemblyman James Gallagher, whose area includes Palermo, said in a statement. “As a community, we’ll all be hugging our loved ones closer today as we pray for the victims and try to make sense of something so senseless.”

Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea said they had received information that the shooter was in a meeting with the principal about enrolling a child at the school, though the meeting wasn’t yet verified by investigators. Shortly after, shots rang out, Honea said. Earlier, officials had said they did not believe the shooter had any connection to the school.

The motive was not immediately known. Honea said they were trying to contact the shooter’s family before releasing his name.

Near the school’s slide and other playground equipment was the shooter’s body, covered in a blue tarp, as officers stood nearby to secure the scene. The school abuts ranchland where cattle graze.

Authorities rushed students initially to a gymnasium where they stayed until a bus arrived to take them off the grounds and to the Oroville Church of the Nazarene to be reunited with their families, Honea said.

Sixth grader Jocelyn Orlando described what happened to CBS News Sacramento.

“We were going in for lunch recess and basically everybody in my classroom heard shooting and most people were screaming,” she said. “We all went into the office, we closed the curtains, locked the doors, basically did what we would do in a school shooting, and then one of the teachers came and we all ran into the gym.”

Rev. Travis Marshall, the senior pastor for the Oroville Church of the Nazarene, called the reunification between parents and their children “very moving.”

“Some of the children were incredibly emotional,” he said. “One woman was raising her hands up, praising the Lord” when she found her child.

Representatives for the Northern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists could not immediately be reached for comment.

The school has been open since 1965, according to its website.

(AP)