Mother: Student stabbed by bully

Family says boy hospitalized in pencil attack; school district calls it an ‘unfortunate accident’

A Corona second grader was hospitalized after his family said a classmate stabbed him in the knee with a pencil.

Carter Flores, an 8-year-old student at Corona Ranch Elementary School, suffered a fractured patella that resulted in a strep A infection, his family’s attorney Michael Jeandron said in an email.

Madeline Flores, Carter’s mother, said it was the third example of physical bullying by a student against her son in the school year that recently ended. Before that, the bullying “was constant but was in the form of taunting, hurtful insults, and harassment,” she said in an email.

The bullying landed Carter at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital on May 25, Jeandron said.

“The bully held the pencil up firmly in his hands as Carter went to sit on the carpet and then it jammed up his knee,” Jeandron said.

The Corona-Norco Unified School District investigated an incident in which a student was injured “by falling onto a pencil,” said a district news release that called it an “unfortunate accident.” The district concluded it was an accident and “not the result of bullying or an intent to harm the involved student,” district spokesperson Evita Tapia said in an email.

Carter was taken to the school nurse’s office, where his wound was cleaned, bandaged and iced, the release states.

Due to the age of the children, there will not be criminal charges, said Cpl. Tobias Kouroubacalis, a Corona Police Department spokesperson.

On May 28, Carter underwent two surgeries to combat the infection that started in his knee and traveled to his hip, according to the fam

ily’s GoFundMe page that has raised $15,458 of the $25,000 goal for medical bills.

Carter went home June 5 and was to be cared for by his mom, who learned to insert a tube in her son’s knee for long-term antibiotics, the GoFundMe page states.

But that home-care lasted a few days, and Carter returned to the hospital June 15 due to a bacterial infection, the GoFundMe page states.

On June 18, Carter returned home from the hospital.

In 2018, the district launched an anti-bullying social media campaign that was “aimed at fostering a safe environment, reducing stigma, spreading positivity and encouraging students to be kind to one another.” Additionally, the district’s website has resources for parents, students and educators.

“The problem is, in this case, is that those policies weren’t followed,” Jeandron alleged.

Jeandron alleged the school knew a student was bullying Carter and intended to keep the two separated, but did not — which he said resulted in Carter’s injury.

School officials cannot discuss whether Carter had been bullied before the incident because of student confidentiality and potential litigation against the district, Tapia said.

Flores said she wants to raise awareness about bullying and to make schools safer.

“At this point, I’ve lost confidence in the school to take bullying seriously,” Flores said, “I’m scared that this type of thing will happen again because they knew about this bully and still allowed the bullying to happen.”

Flores said school officials assured her the bullying would stop and that children were “acting out due to the pandemic,” she said in an email.

Kalina Michalska, an assistant psychology professor at UC Riverside and lab director of Kind Lab, a research program that examines emotional development, said chronic bullying is associated with poor physical and mental health.

Kids who have been repeatedly bullied are hyper aware of danger, which may lead to helplessness and depression, she said.

As for Carter, his mother said the summer won’t be the same.

“He cannot do the things he loves to do and that has been the toughest part for him,” she wrote. “I’m optimistic he will make a full recovery, but will miss playing third base for his AllStar baseball team this summer.”