About two dozen parents and teachers from the Southeast Portland elementary school where a third grader was pressured into eating crack cocaine by an older student filled Tuesday’s school board meeting to demand the district force out the building’s top administrator.

Parents say Arleta Elementary School Principal Diana Kruger mishandled the Oct. 28 incident, with some alleging it was not the first time the school leader had botched her response to their concerns about school matters.

“She should not be in education,” Melissa Dawson, who has two children at Arleta, told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Kruger was not present to explain her actions. She said in written materials provided to parents last week that she called the district offices and Portland police when she heard about the incident and the student was put under the supervision of the school’s health assistant until their family arrived. The student was taken to the hospital and did not show signs of physical distress, Kruger wrote.

Parents also told the school board Tuesday they were upset by the lack of answers district and building officials have provided about the incident.

At one point, board Chair Amy Kohnstamm interrupted a parents’ testimony to tell her complaints about specific district employees should go directly to Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero instead of the board. Parents edited their testimony to address their concerns about the school administration instead of naming Kruger.

Megan Goss, who has a second grader at Arleta, told the board she believes it’s “extremely important you understand we need to be heard about this and so far we haven’t felt completely heard.”

District spokeswoman Karen Werstein said a retired principal has been called in to “provide administrative leadership support” at Arleta and that the school’s regional superintendent has also been on campus this week. She also said the district has launched an investigation.

“We want to know how the incident unfolded, how school leadership and staff responded and what we can learn from it,” Werstein wrote in a statement.

Werstein did not say whether Kruger has been placed on leave but parents told The Oregonian/OregonLive that they did not see her in the building Tuesday.

Dawson, who has a student in the class where the student ingested the narcotics, said the class was a hastily put together blend of third and fourth graders. She told the board Kruger didn’t tell parents who the permanent teacher for the class would be until weeks into the school year.

“This was a class that was thrown together at the last minute,” Dawson said.

Other parents said they believe administrators directed school personnel not to call poison control or dial 911 until an hour after the third grader ingested the drugs. They also said they felt a culture of retaliation pervading the school, which is why few have spoken up about prior concerns.

While Dawson, Goss and others attended the school board meeting, another set of Arleta parents met with district officials at the Southeast Portland school.

Kruger informed parents about the incident hours after it happened and said a student brought an “unidentified white substance” to class.

She followed up with families with children in the classroom in another note. She also called some later that evening and told them Portland police tested the drugs and told her it was crack cocaine.

Kruger also told teachers and staff the same thing during a meeting that day.