The student was disciplined and was to return to school today, Pinellas County schools spokesman Ron Stone said Thursday. He did not provide details of the punishment.

The St. Petersburg police officers involved - two training officers and two probationary officers - were not disciplined because their actions were deemed within policy, police spokesman Bill Proffitt said.

He said one of the training officers, Mark Williams, was aware the girl had been disruptive in the past when police received a call at 3 p.m. Monday saying she again had become violent at Fairmount Park Elementary School, at 575 41st St. S.

The girl had started acting up in class and struck a teacher and Assistant Principal Nicole Di Benedetto, Proffitt said.

She first was restrained with steel, standard-issue handcuffs but slipped out of those, he said. She then was bound with plastic flexible cuffs but continued to struggle, kicking at officers as they walked her out of the school to a squad car, Proffitt said.

She was put in the back of the cruiser but continued kicking one officer in the arms and legs, so another set of handcuffs was used to restrain her legs, a police report says.

When officers called the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office, they were told prosecutors would not charge the girl with battery on a school employee or anything else.

``To think we would consider charging a child of that age with a crime is almost comical,'' said Bruce Bartlett, chief assistant state attorney. Di Benedetto, 31, was disappointed charges were not filed because it was the third time the girl had behaved violently, the police report says. Di Benedetto declined to comment Thursday.

Once prosecutors made their decision, the girl was released to her mother. Neither mother nor daughter was at their apartment Thursday, but the mother was upset that her daughter, who weighs 60 pounds and is 4-foot-5, had been handcuffed, Proffitt said.

Officers contacted the state child abuse registry because they had concerns about what were said to be sudden, negative changes in the girl's behavior and statements she made, the police report says.

Di Benedetto told police she checked on Room 13 at 1:50 p.m., according to the police report. The girl was sitting on the floor, pouting and refusing to take part in a math exercise involving jelly beans, the report says.

It said that eventually, the girl got up, went into the math teacher's office and started throwing things from the desk into the trash.

The teacher had the other students in the class leave.

Another teacher was called to help, but the girl kicked her in the shins, hit her in the arm, and tried to scratch her, the report says. She calmed down after 25 minutes, the report says, but once she was in Di Benedetto's office, she started throwing things again and struck Di Benedetto three times, in the arms and stomach. Then police were called.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 823-3303.