7-YEAR-OLD'S DRUGS STUMP POLICE, SCHOOL

How Cocaine Got In Her Bag And How Officials Reacted Are Being
Probed. Another Phila. Girl May Have Ingested Some.

Philadelphia police yesterday were trying to find out how a second
grader got 12 bags of crack cocaine and took them in her book bag to
John M. Patterson Elementary School in Southwest Philadelphia.

And after a mother complained that she had not been told that her
daughter may have eaten some of the chunky powder, the school
district began investigating whether school officials reacted
properly when they found the bags Monday afternoon.

Paul Vallas, the district's chief executive, said last night that
the mother called Patterson officials shortly after 4 p.m. Monday,
when her daughter told her that she had put some of the substance in
her mouth.

After police determined at 6:30 p.m. that the substance was cocaine,
Vallas said, school officials called the mother back and suggested
that her daughter be examined at a hospital.

The girl was treated at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and released.

The bags, 18 in total, were carried to the school, at 70th Street
and Buist Avenue, by a 7-year-old girl Monday morning, police said.

She showed them to friends, and second graders were passing the
packets around in class when a teacher confiscated them, said Capt.
Benjamin Naish, a police spokesman. The teacher alerted the
principal, and police were called.

Twelve of the bags contained a white, chunky substance suspected to
be crack, Naish said. The other six were empty.

"Basically, these were $5 crack bags," he said. "It's unclear right
now how the child obtained the drugs."

The child told school officials that she had found them in her book bag.

Naish said that the girl had found the packets in her book bag
before the weekend, but that it was unclear when they had been placed there.

The investigation includes search warrants and interviews, he said.

The girl lives with her parents but spent the weekend at her
grandmother's house, Vallas said.

"How does a second grader get her hands on cocaine?" he wondered.
"Where does that come from?"

Patterson principal Anibal Soler sent letters home with students
yesterday about the discovery.

The girl who took the drugs to school will not be permitted to
return until a guardian has met with Soler and the regional
superintendent, district spokesman Vincent Thompson said. The
district will then decide the girl's discipline, he said.

"Bringing in drugs is a violation of the student code of conduct,
and that is applicable for every child," Thompson said.

Patterson has 741 children in kindergarten through fourth grade.