Ridgeland 5th-grader was chased with a knife. His school’s response? Silence, mom says
A fifth-grader at Ridgeland Elementary School ran through the hallways Oct. 20, trying to escape a classmate wielding a pocketknife, a school resource officer reported. But for the child’s mother, that wasn’t the worst part.
More insidious than the knife chase was Jasper County School District’s lack of response, Tasha Webber said. The school never went on lockdown during the attempted attack. Parents were never officially notified of the incident, and police never took a statement from her son or from her, she said.
She found out only when a family friend who worked for the school called her directly later that morning, asking “Did you hear what happened to Timothy?”
Ridgeland Elementary School principal Renata Johnson-Green, district superintendent Rechel Anderson and district spokesperson Travis Washington did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this article.
Webber has kept Timothy out of school since that day, when he was chased from math class to his language arts classroom before the knife-carrying classmate caught up with him.
In the month that followed, Webber scheduled two meetings with school officials to discuss her concerns. The school did not reach out to her about Timothy’s truancy — which schools are legally obligated to do — and instead informed her last week that he would have to un-enroll from school due to extensive absences. Currently, Timothy is not attending any school.
‘It could have ended tragically’
Timothy and the boy who chased him had been arguing about an assignment before the classmate pulled out a pocketknife and flicked his arm as if extending the blade.
According to Webber, the language arts teacher picked up the other student and held him back, giving Timothy time to run to a third-grade classroom, where a teacher shut the door and told him to hide until his classmate was apprehended.
But Webber wasn’t notified.
“I don’t appreciate the fact they’re trying to hide this,” she said. “This is something that needs to be addressed. It could have ended tragically.”
According to the South Carolina Department of Education’s school report cards, Jasper County School District reported zero physical attacks with or without a weapon during the 2020-21 school year, when students were largely attending classes remotely. In the 2019-20 school year, the district reported zero attacks with weapons and 10 attacks without weapons.
Webber realized how badly the attack has shaken her when she took Timothy to a birthday party, but wouldn’t let him go and play with other children. Her friends asked her what was wrong with her, and she left the party. She sat in her car, wondering why she felt angry.
“And then I thought about the whole situation,” she said. “You know, the whole time, I got upset because my son left my side to go play with these kids and that’s normal. But on the inside, I felt paranoid, and I didn’t feel comfortable with him being with the other kids.”
‘Pray about it’
Webber expected support from Ridgeland Elementary School after the attack. Instead, she was told on Nov. 19 that she would have to un-enroll her son from the school.
“I waited a while just to see if they would reach out to me, but it never happened,” she said. “So I reached out to them.”
On Oct. 25, she scheduled a phone call with Johnson-Green, telling her she did not feel comfortable with Timothy returning to campus unless the school began using metal detectors at entrances or enforced a clear-bag policy for students. She asked if Timothy could complete his classwork virtually or with take-home paper packets.
“I cried,” Webber said. “I told her I did not know what to do at this time. I didn’t feel comfortable sending my son back to school. She told me you know, pray about it and do what you think is best.”
Since Oct. 20 Timothy’s been spending the day with his aunt and uncle, who run a business from home, while Webber goes to work two jobs.
Webber claims that until Nov. 12, nobody from the school reached out to her about Timothy’s truancy — illegal in South Carolina, where the code of laws stipulates that “school officials shall immediately intervene” when a child has more than three consecutive unlawful absences.
Webber scheduled a follow-up call with Johnson-Green on Nov. 12 to tell the principal she still didn’t feel comfortable sending her son to school. The principal told her that all of the district’s virtual class slots had already been taken, and that counseling was available for Timothy, but only if he returned to campus. She also said the school was installing metal detectors, but didn’t provide a date when they’d be operational.
At the end of the call, after Webber said she still wasn’t bringing Timothy back, Johnson-Green told her that Timothy had passed the maximum number of absences allowed in a school year and would have to un-enroll from Ridgeland Elementary for the rest of the year.
Webber is looking for virtual school options for her son now, but everything she’s checked has already closed enrollment for this semester. But now, she’s determined to speak out for other families and students who have been affected by similar situations.
“(After the attack) I just went into a shell,” she said. “But now, I’m finding my strength.”
This story was originally published November 16, 2021 at 3:45 PM.