A stabbing incident Friday morning at Ryan High School left one student hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, according to Denton police.
Another Ryan student, who police alleged had used a knife, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and taken to the Denton County Juvenile Detention Center.
Both students were under the age of 17, according to police.
“No one else was threatened or injured during the incident,” Denton Police Department spokesperson Amy Cunningham said in an email to the Denton Record-Chronicle on Saturday morning.
Denton ISD didn’t mention a stabbing in a Saturday morning statement to the Record-Chronicle. Instead, a district spokesperson referred to it as a “classroom incident” and wrote that “emergency medical services (EMS) had responded to Ryan High School after a student was injured in a classroom incident.
“The student’s family was immediately notified, and the individual responsible was taken into custody by law enforcement,” Nick Petito, the district’s chief communications officer, wrote. “All other students were promptly and safely relocated at the time of the incident, and staff worked quickly with first responders to ensure the situation was contained.
“The matter has been fully addressed.”
Some parents disagree.
Ryan High parents discussing the incident online said they had no idea that a stabbing had occurred until word began spreading on social media and via news reports Friday night.
The district contacted parents shortly after the classroom incident but painted a vague picture of what occurred.
Denton ISD’s Friday email says: “This morning, emergency medical services (EMS) responded to Ryan High School to assist a student in need of medical attention.
“We want to thank the students and staff who calmly followed our established emergency procedures, helping ensure a safe and efficient response. The instructional day has continued on schedule, and we are sharing this information so you are aware of the reason an emergency response vehicle was at the campus.”
On Saturday morning, Crystal Zamora, a parent of a Ryan student, shared the district’s initial email with the Record-Chronicle.
“Nowhere did it state anything about a stabbing, and I’m furious!” Zamora wrote.
Another parent, Cristal Mendoza, also shared the schoolwide email and said she sent a strongly worded email to the superintendent and plans to attend the next school board meeting.
“This is not how I should be finding out!” Mendoza wrote in a Facebook message. “... This is a complete mishandling of the situation, and it needs to be addressed.”
She added: “I understand not releasing some information because of HIPAA and because they are minors but if you’re going to take my kid’s phone away and a student stabs another student that disrupts the learning environment, the news and Facebook is not where I should be finding out.”
In a follow-up call, Petito said that the school district followed standard operating procedure with the initial email and that legal and privacy reasons limited what they could initially share with parents.
Petito said the stabbing incident didn’t occur in the main building but in a classroom with a very small number of students.
Once more information became available, Petito said, the district contacted parents of those students with additional information via email and offered counseling services to those students. He said they also followed up with a phone call.
“The district went to great lengths to make sure our students are well taken care of, and those services were made available and continue to be made available,” Petito said.
But no other communication was sent to other Ryan High families.
“It would be nice to know so that as the parent or guardian we can make the decision whether we want to keep my student at that school, drop in and check on them — or if we need to pick them up for the day [and] have a conversation about what happened and then continue on,” Mendoza wrote. “These are children, not adults or criminals. As big as they are, they are still kids and need to be dealing with home, coming and adjusting to the school — not worry about possibly being stabbed. ...”
Mendoza stressed that no more security and checkpoints and medical detectors are needed; instead, she wrote, the district should “check on the parents to figure out what’s going on at home and at school that led up to this and support both families!”
“I’m disappointed in the transparency of Denton ISD.”