Teacher stabbing, student assault fuel safety concerns in Buffalo schools

And an 8-year-old girl was attacked by another student on the school bus on the way home from Herman Badillo Bilingual Academy last week.

The incidents magnified growing concerns regarding Buffalo Public Schools’ ability to keep children and teachers safe.

"It shattered my heart as a mother when I saw the video of my 8-year-old daughter being brutally beaten with no one to stop it or help her,” the girl’s mother, Jennifer Vellon, said in an email about Monday's incident.

“The adult school bus driver failed to immediately stop the bus and intervene in the life of our child."

Channel 4, which first reported the incident, reported on Thursday that the bus driver has been removed from service, and that both the school district and the bus company, First Student, were investigating the situation.

On Friday, the girl’s mother said in a statement to local news outlets that school district officials still had not contacted her. 

"To this date, four days later, the school district has not communicated with us as to what actions they are taking,” Vellon said. “We only learned of some action taken when they recently released a statement to the media.

"Something must be done to protect not just our child but all the children. The silence, lack of empathy, or support from school officials adds insult to injury."

On Sunday, Interim Superintendent Tonja Williams disputed the assertion that no school officials reached out to the 8-year-old's family.

"I have been informed that the family has been contacted by multiple members of the school community at various times to provide support, guidance and insight into how the incident has been handled," Williams said in an email. "In addition a restorative circle to promote healing was facilitated by school and district officials, between the victim and the student who committed the offense's parents.

"The building principal and the school's student support team and crisis team have also been in contact with the family of the offending student and the students who witnessed the incident to support their wellness."

But Vellon was not the only one complaining about what they considered to be a lack of communication and support. Parents of McKinley students expressed similar sentiments on Feb. 9, when they stood outside in the cold, wondering whether their children were safe after receiving panicked texts from them.

At the time, parents knew only that the school was locked down because someone had been shot, and the shooter remained on the loose. Later, they would learn that a student had been stabbed and a security officer had been shot outside the school.

But while parents waited outside McKinley on Feb. 9, the only information they received came from their children and police officers on the scene, leaving them frustrated and angry with district officials.

The district's handling of the situation at McKinley that night and in the days that followed proved to be the catalyst for Superintendent Kriner Cash's departure from Buffalo.

School Board President Lou Petrucci said the board is aware of concerns regarding safety in the schools, and is expected to vote on Wednesday to hire a security firm to assess how things are handled in the district, as part of its review of the shooting and stabbing at McKinley.

"We're commissioning a security firm to take a deep dive into our procedures and policies and make sure they're best for the district," he said. "We felt as a board it would be a good idea to take a look at all our security responses.

Petrucci said the board is aware of the need for more staff to help with certain aspects of security.

"As much as I would love to hire more resource officers, more bus aides, is that lag time – recruitment takes time," he said. "It takes time to onboard people."

Nobody to listen

Vellon said that on Tuesday, her family received a video taken by other students of the incident on the bus. 

The child complained of injuries to the ear, side of face, one of her legs and one of her arms, as well as a "busted upper lip," said Robert Quintana, a former Buffalo Council member, whom the family contacted. Their account contrasted with that given by the district. 

"The school has said nothing to the parents," Quintana said Friday, adding that the family learned from the media – not the district – that the bus driver had been removed from service.

Vellon asked that the other child not be near her daughter when her daughter returned to school, he said.

After Channel 4 aired the story about the attack on Vellon’s daughter, parents of another child who was beaten on a different bus two weeks ago told a community activist the same thing happened to their child, Quintana said.

That incident also was captured on video, showing what he said was a seventh grader hitting a third grader. The third grader’s family was afraid to come forward because they feared retaliation, he said.

"They fear their child is going to be kicked out of school, they feel they don’t have anybody who’s going to listen to them,” Quintana said.

Teacher afraid of student

On Wednesday, an Emerson student had been suspended for arguing with a teacher. She was in the main office waiting for a parent to take her home, according to information provided by the Buffalo Teachers Federation.

She left the office and vandalized the Black History Month decorations on the teacher’s door, according to the information from the union. The teacher went to the office to tell the principal what had happened.

As the teacher walked past the student on the way back to her classroom, the student ran up behind her, pushed her down and hit her in the head multiple times, according to an incident report from the Buffalo Police Department.

The student stabbed the teacher in the eye with what the teachers union described as “a plastic shiv .” Police said school security recovered an edger brush from the student when they apprehended her.

The teacher suffered an injury to her left eye and nasal passage and bruising on her right hand and left leg, according to police. She told police she is afraid of the student and wants an order of protection.

The girl was charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon with the intent to use it.

This is not the first time this school year that students at Emerson have been involved in a stabbing.

In November, two Emerson students were stabbed by three other students from Buffalo School of Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management on West Huron Street, across a parking lot from Emerson, when they were getting off the Metro Rail train at Fountain Plaza.

News Staff Reporter Aaron Besecker contributed to this report.