Kindergarten student brings knife to Cobb elementary school, district says

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Some parents and teachers in Cobb County are concerned after a kindergarten student brought a knife to school.

Channel 2′s Cobb County Bureau Chief Michele Newell was outside Dowell Elementary School on Wednesday, where parents said the school district is not being transparent enough.

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District officials told Newell that it was a butter knife, but several teachers said it was actually a bladed knife.

Jeff Hubbard, the president of the Cobb County Association of Educators, said he believes the weapon was more than a butter knife.

“Respectfully say that is not correct, it was a bladed knife it was over two inches long,” Hubbard said. “I do know that the Cobb County school police came to do an investigation.”

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Hubbard said that his phone has been blowing up with calls from teachers and parents since the incident, wanting to know why the district failed to notify parents and staff.

“They reached out to me as part of the organization and said, ‘Jeff, what do we do?’ Another student saw it, reported it to the teachers. The teachers made a timely decision to report it to the administration, then nothing was shared with the parents,” Hubbard said.

The district released a statement, saying:

“We are aware that a kindergarten student brought a butter-knife-style utensil in their bag. Police found that there was never any threat to students or staff. Per Georgia law and district policy, student discipline details cannot be made public.”

Parent Khaliah Salone said she had no idea a student at her child’s school brought a knife to class, and that a knife is a knife, no matter what the intention.

“Nowadays, there’s so much violence going on in all of these schools. I have a second grader,” Salone said. “For her to be around something like that and we are not even notified to take any precaution or talk to our kids about it, (that) frightens me more than anything.”

Newell asked the district to share a picture of the knife, but they never responded.

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