CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WTVR)--Andrea Andaluz says she still wants answers from administrators at her children’s school. She says her whole family is shaken by a knife incident that happened this week on the bus in front of Elizabeth Scott Elementary School.
Andaluz says her sons were boarding their bus when they noticed a child in a seat pulling a knife out of his bag. She says her sons immediately told the bus driver and the driver called the child to the front and confiscated the knife.
This happened before the bus left the school grounds. After that, Andaluz says she was told an administrator came and took the child with the knife off of the bus.
“Upset. I’m very, very upset. You think you send your child to school and that safety measures are in place and that the bus has cameras. You think that all of those measures are in place but this is a big wakeup call that it’s not,” Andaluz said.
Chesterfield police explained to CBS 6 News that no charges were filed in this case.
They investigated and determined the child never threatened anyone with the knife and that he had it in his bag. Police also tell us that according to state code, the knife the child had isn’t considered a weapon because the metal blade on it wasn’t three inches long.
Andaluz says she and her family won’t rest until she gets more answers from school leaders. She says she is hesitant to allow her sons back on the bus because she doesn’t know if the school pulled the student from the bus permanently.
In the meantime, she says she and her husband will continue to talk to their sons and get them counseling through the school to make sure that they feel secure going back on the bus one day. She also says she’ll continue to reiterate to her sons that violence is never a solution.
She says she expected administrators to send out a detailed letter explaining to parents what the situation was and that it involved a knife.
Andaluz played a message from her cell phone that was sent out by the school principal. The message told parents that an incident happened on a bus and that appropriate action had been taken. Andaluz says it was too vague and parents who got that should have been told specifically about the knife.
“It is very disconcerting that this is an elementary school child and it should send a red flag that he made a decision to put a real knife, not a fake one in his bag and go to school. He had it all day and this happened at the end of school, so he could have hurt any one of the nine hundred students.
Chesterfield police say as far as they’re concerned, no crime was committed. The child was not charged.
