PHILADELPHIA – Parents of students at Philadelphia’s S. Weir Mitchell Elementary School are outraged after officials refused to discuss a recent drug bust involving crack cocaine passed among students.

Parents who arrived to pick up their children Thursday found the school besieged by police and news vehicles, but school officials wouldn’t discuss what was going on, NBC 10 reports.

“Cocaine in schools?! They need to tell us what’s going on when something’s affecting our kids,” parent Donna Henderson, mother of a Mitchell kindergartener, told the news site. “And then when I go into the office and asked what was going on, they wouldn’t tell us anything!”

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Police responded to the school after a student reported to officials that a bag of crack cocaine was circulating among students. Investigators allege a 13-year-old student gave a sandwich bag of crack to an 8-year-old student shortly before noon, and promised the younger child $7 to hold the stash until the end of the school day, NBC 10 reports.

The 8-year-old student reportedly showed the drugs to his classmates, one of which sniffed the substance briefly before another student reported the contraband to school officials, CBS 3 reports.

“Thank goodness that one of the students actually made sure staff was made aware of it and staff intervened,” Philadelphia schools superintendent William Hite told NBC 10.

Police searched the school and found eight more sealed bags of crack in a school bathroom before calling in a plumber to check the drains for more. Authorities transported the four students involved to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as a precaution, and the 13-year-old tested positive for marijuana, according to media reports.

The child’s mother, however, is adamant the child had nothing to do with the crack cocaine.

“He’s in the clear,” the child’s mother, Asheen Bell, told NBC 10. “He had not bring the drugs to school, he did not touch them, he did not distribute them out to no one, they have it wrong, he did not do it.”

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“The case was crack, not marijuana,” she said. “He didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Philadelphia Police Lt. John Walker said “it’s just a sad situation when you have kids at this age who are exposed to this type of stuff this early in life.”

“We obviously know this kid got it from somewhere and him asking an 8-year-old to hold it for him, obviously he has some knowledge of the trade,” Walker told NBC 10.

Police executed a search warrant on the 13-year-old’s home the same evening, but no arrests were made, CBS 3 reports.

Detectives left the child’s apparent with bags of evidence, but wouldn’t disclose what was inside, according to NBC 10.

Hite said the investigation is ongoing, and the district is determined to find out how exactly the crack made its way into the elementary school.

“It’s really important for us to foind out how this child came into possession of these drugs and how on earth do they end up with a 13-year-old at a school, at an elementary school,” he told CBS 3.

Relatives of students at the school, meanwhile, are still reeling from the discovery.

“Someone could’ve died from those drugs. That’s crazy,” grandparent Valerie Sloane said.

“It’s sad drugs are getting into the school and kids actually know what to do with it,” parent Duane Evans told CBS 3.