Kenilworth Stabbing Highly Unusual, District Says

Petaluma City Schools officials said the boy who was sliced on the ear during a fight at Wednesday morning is fine and will soon be returning to school.

School administrators referred media inquiries about the attack to the district, which called Wednesday’s knife fight a “unique and rare incident” and said the school will be notifying all parents today about what happened.

"If there was any impending danger to students or staff, a notice would have gone out immediately," said Dave Rose, director of student services for Petaluma City Schools.

On Wednesday, a 13-year-old boy was attacked with a 5-inch blade knife during a fight with another boy, with whom he had an ongoing dispute. No teachers or other staff members knew about the conflict and the fight that ensued did not fit "the typical pattern," Rose said. 

“This is the first time in my seven years with the district that a weapon has been used in a peer conflict in any of our schools,” said Rose, who was a principal at Kenilworth Junior High for five years. 

“There is nothing a school can ever do to completely prevent something like this from happening except to put in metal detectors…If we were experiencing a great deal of incidents like that at our schools, we would be looking at that alternative.”

Rose said the school holds Challenge Day each year, a program that addresses bullying, conflict resolution and has been widely successful in preventing issues. But he said the school alone can’t always prevent conflict and relies on parents to speak with their children and find out what’s going on in their lives.

Meanwhile, some parents are calling on Kenilworth Junior High to take a more proactive approach to what they say are ongoing incidents of bullying at the school.

“In just a month, I have heard about cyber bullying, gangs, drugs in the bathroom, several expulsions,” said Krista Gawronksi, whose son, Frank, is a seventh grader at the school, in a letter to other parents. “What alarms me is that there are not enough safety measures and consequences in place to address these problems…It is not enough to blanket the problem and say that these were isolated incidents, because we know better. " 

Gawronski, who owns , is calling on the school to organize a community town hall meeting to address the violence and develop an action plan to address the safety concerns on campus.

“I understand that there are wonderful teachers and programs that are available at school, but underneath there is a layer of trouble, danger and chaos,” she wrote.