BERKS COUNTY, Pa. -- A junior-senior high school in Berks County where students were stabbed Wednesday reopened Thursday under tight security.

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The Berks County community gathered Thursday night to learn more about a teen's school-stabbing rampage Wednesday.

Parents had quite an earful for school administrators but the school superintendent beat them to the punch by admitting his team could have done better.

"I'm not making excuses, a lot of things going on in fast-paced environment. We needed to do a better job. I agree with you," Dr. Lawrence W. Mayes said.

Most of the parents' criticisms focused on the perceived lack of communication. The district's new emergency-alert system will soon be installed; it would have been a big help Wednesday to let parents know what was happening.

Parents also wanted to know if the teachers handled the situation properly.

"The behavior of certain teachers during the lockdown was appalling," a parent decried.

The uncle of a student whose hands were gashed as she fought the boy for his knives, wondered why she had to.

"The teacher and the kids left Melissa injured in the room with an individual with two knives in his hand. What happened there? She could have got killed," Denny Navario said.

"These are the things that we would not anticipate to happen in our little haven in this part of Pennsylvania," Mayes said.

Earlier Thursday, police were stationed at Antietam Middle-Senior High School just outside Reading, where authorities said a 13-year-old boy stabbed his classmates Wednesday morning.

Four students were hurt, and the 13-year-old boy was charged with aggravated assault. The fourth student injured in Wednesday's attack was a teen girl who left school, went home and reported the injury to her mother, police said.

The 13-year-old alleged attacker is scheduled to have his first day in court Friday. He's being held at the Berks County Correctional Facility for juveniles.

Central Berks regional police Officer Ray Serafin said classes were being held as usual. Police searched every student with a handheld metal detector in the morning, and students could use only one entrance into the building Thursday morning.

Initially, police believed three people were stabbed, but they later found the fourth victim was too afraid to report the incident. Her mother later took her to a local hospital, investigators said.

The students' injuries did not appear to be life-threatening, but the attack was still on many students' minds.

"I had nowhere to go. We fought for a long time. I got the knife away from him," student Melissa Roman said.

Roman said she found herself trapped with the 13-year-old armed with knives.

Students talked with counselors and teachers Thursday.

"We basically just ignored our work and talked," student Alexandria Carpousis said.

Eighth-grader Tim Hauck said he knew by the look on his friend's face that the other teenager meant to hurt as many people as he could.

The 13-year-old alleged attacker was wearing a dark trench coat and listening to his MP3 player when he burst into an English class and began slashing at students with a knife, officials said. He also overturned desks, threw books and lit firecrackers.

Police said the boy had come to the Berks County school with a propane torch, gasoline and lantern fluid, and he had left a note for his mother that said: "Mom, I'm so sorry. I love you. Goodbye."

"We think he had plans to hurt himself," Central Berks Police Department Chief Ronald Uczynski Jr. said.

Police said students tried to subdue their classmate, and school officials ultimately stopped him.

"All of a sudden, I didn't feel it when he stabbed me until I started touching my shoulder and then I felt blood," said one of the injured students.

School officials said the alleged eighth-grade attacker was angry, NBC 10's Stacey Weaver reported. He reportedly hated the school, but they don't know why.

Two of the four school stabbing victims later spoke to NBC 10.

"We thought he was playing around by just running into the classroom. But then he was going down the aisles picking out with the knife. And then he just came up to me and stabbed me," said 15-year-old Jasmen Clark.

She said she was reading during class when the 13-year-old unleashed his rage.

"I was just bawling my eyes out. Like, I would never think this would happen, at all," said Clark, who showed the bandages on her back and shoulder to NBC 10 cameras.

"He ran into the classroom with two knives and just started stabbing kids in the back," Roman said.

Clark said she was "shocked and scared." She got to a corner with others and then ran out of the room. Another boy was also cut in the scuffle.

Roman said she threw chairs at the 13-year-old while students ran from class. But she fell and found herself alone in the room with the teen while he punched and slashed at her with a knife.

"All he said was, 'You're not leaving here alive,'" Roman recounted. "I just tried to hit him as much as I could, and I had to do everything to get that knife out of his hands. He finally let go when I hit him in his private area. And he got up and ran."

Police said the suspected attacker was confronted in the hallway by the school principal, who noticed the boy was holding a propane torch device.

"I tried to get him to come to my office. He wouldn't do that. I tried to get him to come to the cafeteria. He wouldn't do that. He was very calm at that point. I had another teacher standing there with me on that landing who was helping me try to talk the student through this also," Principal James Snyder said.

"At that time, we had a teacher coming up from behind him. As I was concentrating on the student and the student was concentrating on me, the teacher knocked his arm and knocked the canister, cylinder from his arm to the floor. And, with that, we surrounded him and apprehended him," Snyder said.

But the one question students and parents want answered is why the eighth-grader allegedly plotted the attack.

Officials said the teen's father died a few years ago, and students said Wednesday was some sort of anniversary.