BEIJING — A man stabbed to death three students and a teacher and wounded five other students before jumping to his death in Hubei Province on Monday, according to a police statement issued in the municipality of Shiyan, where the school is located, and a Twitter post by China Central Television.

The statement, issued on a police microblog, said that the man, Chen Yanfu, had been angry that his daughter had not been allowed to register for the new school term because she had not completed homework assigned to her during summer vacation.

The attack took place in a fifth-grade classroom on the first day of school. The police statement said Mr. Chen had forced his way into classroom No. 2 in the fifth-grade section at 10:20 a.m. and stabbed students and the teacher with a fruit knife. Three students died on their way to the hospital, and two had severe injuries. On Monday night, China Central Television, the state network, said on Twitter that the teacher had died of injuries.

The episode was not the first fatal attack on students by an adult at a Chinese school. Several such assaults in recent years have raised questions about security measures at schools and about the root causes of the anger on the part of the adults. The loss of children and the fury of grieving parents are delicate matters for some Communist Party officials, who fear a groundswell of public anger if the party is judged unable to sufficiently safeguard children.