Parents at an Ohio elementary school were shocked by what their kids brought home on Valentine’s Day. It’s not uncommon for kids in elementary school to bring cards and treats in for the whole class. But usually those treats are candy or stickers, not razor blades, which were reportedly enclosed in Valentine’s Day cards brought in to school by one first grader. Apparently, no one had any idea that anything was amiss with the valentines.
The school is now investigating how the student inadvertently brought razor blades into class thinking they were regular valentines. Only one student was injured in the incident, which serves as an important lesson.
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A class of first graders and their parents at Hatton Community Learning Center in Akron had no idea that the simple white envelopes they got from a classmate on Valentine’s Day contained razor blades. In fact, they all found out at different times, causing fear and anguish for everyone involved.
Tanekea Wright’s 5-year-old daughter, Kaliauna Wright, is the only student so far to report an injury. The girl went to open her card and mysteriously cut her finger.
“She came up just crying, and I’m looking, like, ‘What’s going on?’ And there’s just blood just flowing out her finger,” Wright told WKYC. When she saw the blade, she “instantly got so mad and upset,” as most parents would.
“It does kind of hurt me that I put my faith in the school, especially public school at that, and they just let me down,” Wright added. Her daughter, whose finger is currently bandaged, is expected to make a full recovery.
Alexis Lawson’s son, 6-year-old Remington, is also one of the students who got the gift of razor blades. She spoke with WOIO about the ordeal. “It was a friend that had sent a screenshot from Facebook and I was like I see these all the time like whatever and then like maybe five minutes later it was a screenshot Ms. Keane’s class and I was like, crap,” she explained.
“I was crying,” Lawson said of the discovery. “I was very mad. I can’t use the words I would like to use. I was more hurt because we had a paper from the teacher that all valentines had to be turned in by Monday like Monday four days prior, which means they were more than likely sitting in that classroom for three days and on the fourth day it got passed out.”
A statement from the Akron Public Schools district said the “student unknowingly handed out sealed Valentine’s envelopes with a razor blade inside.” The police told WOIO that the student and her father purchased the envelopes, which were allegedly plain and sealed, at a novelty store. Police department Captain Michael Miller told the news outlet that the girl then decorated the envelopes with her classmates’ names before handing them out.
According to Alexis Lawson, the envelopes weren’t sealed, they were “flapped over.” As soon as she discovered the blade, she called the police. “Dispatch had said we were the 11th caller and the officer that was here just in this neighborhood we were the eighth house that he had been to,” she added.
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“This wasn’t an accident, this was irresponsibility from the parents because as a parent you check those things, not once, not twice, sometimes three times,” she said.
Akron Public Schools have a “zero-tolerance policy for weapons or threats of violence,” a message that went out to parents and shared by WOIO said. The district and school are working with police on the ongoing investigation. No word yet on what kind of discipline the student and her father will face.
