DENVER -- Threats, knives, dangerous weapons -- all found on an elementary school in the Denver area.

7NEWS spent three months investigating weapons at 631 Denver-area schools. One of the biggest offenders was an elementary school.

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We're talking about a school with kids in kindergarten to sixth grade, five to 12 years old.

The principal at Molholm Elementary and district administrators apparently tried to keep this a secret.

Before 7NEWS' investigation, parents did not know the real truth.

"I'm surprised. That's really bad," Aleta Province, parent of a Molholm student, said.

"This is a really high number," another Molholm parent, Sandra Gonzalez, said.

"This is a surprise to me," Molly Gonzales, whose grandson attends Molholm, said.

"Fifteen -- that is surprising for an elementary school," Gary Caulkins, whose son attends Molholm, said.

All these parents or grandparents of students at Molholm Elementary School were reacting to the number 15 -- not the school's teacher to student ratio, not the number of busses leaving campus each afternoon -- it's the number of dangerous weapons reports turned in by the elementary school last year.

"They need to do something. That's bad," Province said.

In the state's recently mailed accountability report, it did inform parents about those 15 incidents. But what the state and the school failed to tell parents is perhaps the most troubling.

"Oh my gosh, wow, that's a lot that's worse than the other ones," Province said.

7NEWS Investigates was first to tell Province and other parents the truth -- Molholm Elementary School had more dangerous weapons reports than any other elementary school in our 10-district analysis.

Consider this: out of 631 schools in those 10 districts, only one high school and two middle schools reported more dangerous weapons than Molholm Elementary.

So how does the principal of Molholm Elementary explain 15 dangerous weapons reports -- more reports than more than 620 other schools in the area?

We don't know. She refused our request for an interview.

We did find some answers in some discipline letters sent by the school to parents of the students involved.

Nine of the dangerous weapons incidents at Molholm involved knives. The most serious happened on March 28. According to the reports, four students brought a fixed-blade knife to Molholm and threatened to kill someone.

Tony Kovaleski/7NEWS: "They threatened to kill someone?"

Rick Kaufman/JeffCo school spokesperson: "A comment was made, 'What do you do with a knife?' And the response was, 'You use it to kill someone.'"

Rick Kaufman/JeffCo school spokesperson: "That was construed as a threat."

Tony Kovaleski/7NEWS: "Use it to kill someone?"

Rick Kaufman/JeffCo school spokesperson: "Correct."

Tony kovaleski/7NEWS: "Elementary students?"

Rick Kaufman/JeffCo school spokesperson: "Correct."

Records filed with the state show administrators at Molholm did not refer those four students or any of the school's 15 dangerous weapons incidents to local police.

Tony Kovaleski/7NEWS: "Was this officially reported to police?"

Rick Kaufman/JeffCo school spokesperson: "Officially, no."

Randy Brown/children attended Molholm: "That's incredible. These people should be prosecuted for that."

Brown's children attended Columbine. For years he's challenged the JeffCo district to keep parents informed about campus crime.

"That's incredible. Didn't they learn anything from Columbine? Didn't they learn anything from the tragedy that happened?" Brown said.

Why were the parents we talked to so surprised?

The answer comes in a decision by Molholm's principal. She elected not to immediately notify parents of the school's 534 students following the March 28 incident, and the district also decided not to notify parents.

Tony Kovaleski/7NEWS: "Why would this district not want to notify parents when you had four students with a fixed blade knife saying it's used to kill somebody - - threatening to kill somebody?"

Rick Kaufman/JeffCo school spokesperson: "I don't know the specifics. I don't know why it was not, why the decision was made not to contact the parents."

Tony Kovaleski/7NEWS: "Was that a mistake?"

Rick Kaufman/JeffCo school spokesperson: "I'm not going to judge a principal's actions without not being involved in the situation at hand."

To give credit where credit is due, the JeffCo district did provide the letters explaining the dangerous weapons incidents, and although Molholm's principal avoided our questions, the district's spokesperson did agree to answer our questions on camera.