The North Penn School District was warned, parents say, before a middle-schooler was attacked with a metal Stanley mug

The North Penn School District remained silent Monday about allegations that staff were warned before a 13-year-old attacked another student in the Pennbrook Middle School cafeteria last week, striking her over the head with a steel Stanley-brand cup and leaving her bleeding.

The victim, a 12-year-old, was taken by ambulance to the hospital following the Wednesday incident and required staples to close the head wound, according to Upper Gwynedd Police Chief David Duffy. The 13-year-old assailant was charged as a juvenile with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, simple assault, and related crimes.

The Pennbrook principal, Nick Taylor, said in a message to families that day that the school was under a “hold” for eight minutes “due to a physical altercation.”

But students and parents who spoke at a school board meeting Thursday said they were locked down for 28 minutes, while blood was being mopped off the cafeteria floor.

They also said that school officials had been alerted to the existence of a “hit list” prior to the assault.

“My daughter went to counselors at 9 o’clock in the morning, twice, and told them this attack was coming today at lunch,” said Chris Pekula, who told the school board his daughter was on the list. “So what happened from the time you and your district got this warning ... to when the attack happened?”

His daughter told the board that on Wednesday, she went to a guidance counselor, and along with two others “filled out a whole paper full of what’s going to happen.” She said she was told not to worry.

Then at lunch, she heard “all this screaming and everybody running.” The girl who was attacked “was faced backwards, and all of a sudden, you just hear these terrible like loud bangs of the Stanley bouncing off her head.”

The assailant, who police said approached the girl from behind, grabbed the girl’s hair and was “hitting her against the table, and just repeatedly hitting her with the Stanley,” said the student, who was at a nearby table. “There was blood going everywhere.”

The student said she lay in bed Wednesday night, thinking “we shouldn’t have had to sit there and watch them clean up her blood with the mop. Watch her repeatedly yelling, ‘I’m going to murder you.’”

She said she didn’t understand why the school didn’t stop the attack: “It was five hours from when I told you it was going to happen.”

Another parent, Alyssa Santiago, said at the meeting that her daughter was also on the hit list, and she had called the school on “two occasions, Tuesday and Wednesday, to inform them of this child who was going to curb stomp my daughter. ... I was assured that it was handled and taken care of.”

Christine Liberaski, a spokesperson for the district, declined to comment Monday, directing a reporter to statements posted on the district’s website.

On Saturday, the district said it planned to contract with “a third-party, unbiased investigator to examine the totality of this incident and to offer an analysis and recommendations.” It also said it would hold a school safety forum and develop school safety committees, among other steps.

“I want to acknowledge the hurt, trauma, concern, and angst that has resulted from the incident that occurred this week at Pennbrook Middle School,” Superintendent Todd Bauer said in the Saturday message, adding that “there are many details to this incident that I am unable to share and this can be frustrating to both you and me.”

Staff writer Vinny Vella contributed to this article.