My sister (the one who works in the local school district) and I had been talking lately about how the local district puts kids under too much stress. When my oldest was in kindergarten, about a quarter of the class was being treated for stomach acid and on zantac, literally. And it has not gotten any better. There is a bully or be bullied attitude, and the staff is often the bullies. The curriculum is dumbed down, but full of pressure and busy work. Kids are harshly punished over the smallest things. Like if an assignment is due on a particular day, if it is not turned in by the time the bell rings for the start of class, the child is given a zero and still has to do the assignment for no credit. Can you imagine in the real world if forgetting something or being a second late meant that the person still had to do the work for you or give you the product for free? Being sick is not always an acceptable excuse at the schools. SO, this 9 yr old hangs himself on school property in the nurses office. Apparently, he has been so desparate to not be in class that he did that. He had gone down to the nurses office many times begging to not go back to class and finally, the last time, he hung himself. My sister says within the district, the staff and such are simply blowing it off as being the parents fault. "It all starts at home" and "not our fault, nothing we could have done" kind of stuff is happening from the very school he committed suicide in, the very school he killed himself in an attempt to get away from. Anyway, I guess we will be at his funeral tonight, or next to it, as it is at the church and dd has orchestra at the same time. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/012210dnmethanging.a15c906e.html
It really bothers me that ANYTHING, I mean anything at all, can happen in the public schools, and everyone is still saying nothing is wrong and it is not their fault. They are accountable to NOTHING and are considered completely infallable. It really really bothers me.
ok, I am NOT pointing blame at ANYONE, but could it be that there was more going on in this child's life then a bad school environment? I agree public school's have a lot of problems, but there (at least according to the article) isn't anything that points a finger at the school. I don't understand where a child of 9 even got the idea of killing himself. I feel for the parents...
Because I live here, I know what the school is like and what is going on there. Also, because my sister works here. I am just shocked there have not been more. There have been other suicides, but they have been at the middle school and high school level. In reality, there could be way more than we realize as due to privacy laws, the schools do not release how a child died so it takes someone else talking about it for others to hear about it.
Oh, my heart goes out to this family on this senseless death. I didn't read the article because I just can't bring myself to read it yet. But I know this child's pain in that building. When ds was in K at ps, I was called in to the school constantly. One day I walked down the hall to find him sitting alone in the library, seated in a chair at a table by himself, rocking himself like you see portrayed in movies of mental institutions. As I got closer to him, he didn't see me at all. He was staring blankly in front of himself saying over and over again, "I need to escape. I need to escape." That was one of the most gut-wrenching moments of my entire life. Needless to say, we rescued him immediately.
I had to turn the news off when this story came on. DD walked in just in time to ask me what happened to him. My DH's dad committed suicide and it still boggles my mind. It really makes me wonder, and I am very sad to think that a 9 year old could feel like ending his life was the only option. On a side note I must have missed a second story on it. The story that showed on NBC said he did it in the bathroom. Not that it really matters.
Why haven't these parents been attending board meetings? The principle is hired BY THE BOARD. I don't know about other places, but here the board is elected. All these incidents should have been reported to the board. This woman needs to have serious charges drawn up against her, and as of now, I would be bringing negligence charges of some kind against the board.
The board really does not care. They also hold a lot of their meetings in private, which is against the law. The way they are elected is very questionable too. The elections are held on school property, after PTA meetings where the various board members will speak before you can go in to the polling place. So, for example, the ones I have been at...the PTA meeting is in the Cafeteria and those are the only doors unlocked. The meeting might start at 7 and then the board member will speak and the doors will only be unlocked to the polling place (always the school library) after he is done talking. You must go through the PTA meeting and cafeteria doors to get to the polling place. In addition, they usually go uncontested. From what I have read, but I do not know if anyone has been denied, someone has to present a petition with a certain number of signatures to run for the board. But they have to submit it to the board and the board approves it or not. http://www.whosplayin.com/xoops/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1306 that is 1 example but little guy needs to eat so I need to go.
And no one has contacted the State Attorney General about these violations? Why not? Especially since they are now at least partly responsible for the death of a child, and abuse of who knows how many more? THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE for the children attending that school, and the behavior of all the staff there!
No, of course you can't! I was just letting off steam. You would think that the person with that web page would have tried that!
My children were bullied by the principal at the first school(not the one at the school where the child killed himself). That is when I started homeschooling. Later, we moved, within the same district. At a different school, my son was bullied again. Now realize, I have 5 children, baby has never been in school here though, but my experiences span many years and levels of schools so multiple schools. BUT, my own children have had experiences like described in this website, except different school within same district. I went through every single channel I knew of. This includes going all the way through TEA. I also called Child Protective Services at the first school. CPS would not investigate the public school. They said if they found my child being abused, they would go after me, the parent, not the school..because I knowingly send my child in to an abusive situation. TEA sent me back to the district. The school board ignored my emails. If I went in front of the board, all the minutes of the meeting are posted publically. This means my childrens names and anything I say, like that the one had an IEP and health problems, would have been posted on the world wide web. I essentually would have consented to that by speaking at the meeting as those were issues in how my child was being treated. When I attempted to even make public the recent abuses by the principal at the high school and one particular teacher, I was practically lynched by the local area moms group board. They said they did not believe it, they were calling BS. Of course, NONE of them had children at that school or even in this district that said that to me. So, how far can a parent get, when others who have not been there are willing to fight for the bad person without even hearing or seeing the facts. My sister used to work over where the principal is where the child committed suicide. She told me her first year there, the principal said "I can stand on my head and p**s in the wind and there is nothing anyone can do about it." She tried to get out of the school after the first year, but found out that to stay within the district, she had to stick it out for 3 yrs. They also sign their contracts earlier than other districts. So when she was offered a job in another district the next year, that same principal would not let her out of her contract under threat of having her teaching certificate revoked. The next year after that, my sister left. This district is huge with over 50,000 students. The administration are like tyrants. They do not follow state laws on how the schools are supposed to run. People who have no experience here are saying stuff l like poor poor principal, people are just finger pointing. But people who have been there done that wonder why the rest of the people are so blind.
