Principal Says Youth Struck Him With Bat

Junior high school Principal Pete Nichols was recovering at home Friday after a high school student clubbed him on the head as school let out at his south Oxnard campus.

Nichols, 52, said he was confronted Thursday by three youths shortly after the school bell rang at Haydock Intermediate School on Hill Street, where he has been principal since May.

He said he was trying to shoo the continuation school students off the campus when one bashed his head with a miniature baseball bat.

“I started bleeding like a stuck pig,” said Nichols at his hillside Camarillo home. “The wound isn’t very big, it just hurts like hell.”

He was driven to his doctor after the police were called. The blow opened a two-inch gash that required three stitches to close.

The assailant is a student at a local continuation high school, school district officials said. The others are eighth-grade students at the Nueva Vista continuation school, they said. Continuation schools are for students who are removed from mainstream schools because of their behavior or because they have difficulty adjusting.

Oxnard police Friday could provide no information on the incident.

The confrontation apparently grew out of run-ins that Nichols had earlier in the week with one of the eighth-graders. He said he had chased the student off the Haydock campus on Monday after reports that he and a friend were bothering physical-education students.

On Wednesday, as Nichols drove near Nueva Vista school, the student hit his car with a rock.

The next morning, Nichols confronted the student at the continuation school and called police, who issued the teen-ager a citation. The student showed up at Haydock with his friends a few hours later.

“It’s not our school that’s the problem,” Nichols said. “We’re talking about 1% of the student body that is un-parented. But that 1% can do an awful lot of damage.”

Oxnard elementary school officials said this was the first time a student has attacked a teacher or an administrator.

“We are shocked, we are stunned that this sort of thing can happen,” said Supt. Norman Brekke. “But we believe the students in our school district, particularly at Haydock, are youngsters who follow the rules and who are not troublesome.”

Brekke said police are seeking criminal charges against the student who hit Nichols and possibly the other two. He said he plans to seek expulsion of the two eighth-grade students involved in the incident.

“We’ve never had anything like this in my memory,” Brekke said. “Clearly, we are going to convey the message to our students that this kind of misbehavior is not going to be tolerated.”

Added school board member Mary Barreto: “I know I personally plan to follow through with a strong hand. For me, it’s stepping over the line.”

Nichols has been an administrator with the Oxnard Elementary School District since 1976. Before joining 1,000-student Haydock last spring, he was principal at Driffill Elementary School for eight years.

He said he has been attacked by a student once before, when he taught school in Los Angeles during the early 1970s. That time he was hit in the head with a bottle during a student disturbance.

“The thing is, there the school system is out of control,” said Nichols, who could return to school as early as Monday.

“Here, I firmly believe that the kids are safe inside of school and the teachers are safe inside of school. We just can’t control what happens when they walk off campus.”