The mom of an eighth grade student at Westside Middle School wants the student who threatened her daughter with a knife to be expelled from school.
Aliya Plater says it started with a confrontation Tuesday after school, when the girl waited for her at her locker and mumbled something under her breath.
“She said something and I said, ‘What did you say?’ because I didn’t hear her. She laughed and then I just dropped it,” says Plater.
Two days later, another student told Plater the other girl had a large kitchen knife with her at school and had every intention of stabbing Plater with it.
Plater says she immediately called her mom and warned school officials about the knife before class Thursday morning. School officials stopped the girl before going to class – that’s when the knife was discovered.
“When she text me yesterday about this girl thinking about stabbing her, I started having a panic attack on the interstate trying to get to the school,” says Ryann Nelson, Plater’s mom.
Nelson says the she her daughter met with the principal for about an hour Thursday to assess the situation. Nelson says the principal told her there would be disciplinary action towards the girl.
Now Nelson says she doesn’t feel like the district is doing what’s best for the safety of her daughter or for other students.
"It's a no tolerance thing to bring a weapon to school. As it should be. So I don't feel that they are proceeding in the right way,” says Nelson.
Nelson says the principal told her he and the superintendent decided the girl would be suspended for thirty days, and would continue with in-school suspension for a weeks when she came back to school. The school also told her they would hire a third party to escort the girl to her classes.
"I do want that girl to get help, because I believe that she needs help. But she needs to be set in an alternative school. She does not need to come back to Westside. What kind of example is that giving our children?” says Nelson.
Nelson says her daughter is the victim and that it’s wrong for her daughter to no longer feel safe at school.
"I don’t feel safe at school anymore. I'm concerned that she will figure out what happened when she was gone and she will come back and maybe be even more irritated and maybe want to stab me or whatever she has to do to hurt me,” says Plater.
The principal sent out a letter to parents Thursday evening notifying them of the incident, explaining they found a student with a knife and that local police had been called.
