Student arrested for bringing knife to school 'by mistake'

A high-school senior was arrested for bringing a weapon to school after a school police officer noticed a knife in her purse as she went through a security scanner yesterday morning.

The incident happened at 8:15 a.m. at the Kensington High School for the Creative and Performing Arts on Front Street near Berks, said Officer Christine O'Brien, a police spokeswoman. The female student, 18, had a 3.5-inch knife in her purse, O'Brien said.

District Spokesman Fernando Gallard said the teen's father placed the knife in his daughter's bag for an unknown reason, and the teen didn't know it was there. "She's a good student, about to go to college," Gallard said. "She has no disciplinary history and had no knowledge of the blade and no intent to use it in any way. It was a mistake."

The district dumped its zero-tolerance policy in 2011, in part because of incidents like this, Gallard said. But a 1995 state law requires school districts to tell police any time a weapon is found on school property, he added. That happens hundreds of times a year; 221 weapons were found on school property from the start of the school year through January, compared to 233 for the same period last school year, Gallard said. Still, it's not uncommon for the "weapons" to be box cutters, hair-cutting scissors or other job-related tools that students inadvertently bring to school, he added.