Bullies: how reponsible are schools?

One mother thinks they are absolutely responsible and is suing the district for failing to respond to reports of bullying.

http://www.news-leader.com/article/20110615/NEWS11/110615003/-1/RSS

 

It's hard to say. But I know a friend of mine lives in a neighboring district. She had a student in her class (first grade) that would bit/hit/pinch the other students. Complaints from the parents were totally disregarded. ("But that child needs an education, too! We CAN'T remove her from the classroom!!!") Basically, the mother refused to sign off for her being in a classroom for kids with behavior problems. ("The district is picking on my child!!!") Then on day, she literally had the teacher/kids huddled in the middle of the room while she threw chairs around the room. VERY dangerous situation! And the parent removed the child to a different district that "wouldn't have it in for my kids!"

So how much is the school responsible for allowing a dangerous situation to continue? What if a child had been hurt while she had her tantrum? How much is the parent responsible?

But I also feel that a parent needs to DOCUMENT every time they call/talk with someone at the school, and the results. Heck, I've been telling Carl he needs to keep a notebook for his students and document every time he fills out a behavior slip or calls a parent, just to cover his butt! (That's the type of school he was in this year, and will be next year!)

 

There's not enough information in the article to say one way or another whether the lawsuit is justified, or how much the school might be responsible (did it happen under a teacher's supervision, for instance?).

In general, I think the people MOST responsible for protecting a child are that child's own parents/guardians. The school comes second, because the child has been temporarily placed in the school's care.

Stories of people shoving crying, puking children onto school busses day after day and then blaming the school for their child's emotional problems make me want to spit nails. Sure, the abuser is responsible for the abuse, but you don't protect your child by putting them right back into that abusive situation and expecting someone else to look out for them!

That would be like telling a battered woman that she has to keep living with the man who batters her, while we try to figure out some way to convince him to stop. Even if the child wants to stay, you pull them out of there.

We had a case similar to what Jackie described. A boy pushed my daughter off a slide and bent her glasses in grade 1. She came home with a note from the teacher describing the incident. We wrote back and the teacher called us immediately. She explained that she didn't think it was a personal issue between the boy and my daughter, because the boy was attacking everyone, including adults. She then said that an aide had been assigned to shadow the boy, so hopefully there would be no more incidents. A week later the boy bit my daughter, who came home with another note from the teacher. That got an angry letter sent to the school, and another call back. Yes, the boy was now being kept segregated from the other children until a placement could open up for him in a behavioural class. Three days later he was gone.

We felt the school handled this quite responsibly, and we were satisfied with the outcome. But if they had allowed our daughter to continue to be harassed, we would have pulled our daughter from school and consulted a lawyer.

 

The parents of the offending child are the ones who should be held responsible. Yes, the school should intervene, and make the appropriate reports, but ultimately, a bullies parents should take responsibility for either lack of parenting, or neglecting to get help for a troubled kid.

 

Wow, Meg! I know my friend would have been THRILLED to have had her incident handled the way it was at your daughter's school! Kudos to them!

 

Bullying is why I pulled my daughter from school last May, and will be homeschooling her.

She is overweight, and (sadly) had learned to handle the comments and names. It progressed to physicality and she finally told me about it. After meetings with the teachers, counselors, and principal, nothing was done. The boys were talked to and that was it; it kept happening, with more of the boys friends joining in. All the staff kept coming back to was how she felt about her weight. They turned it on her that she shouldn't be so sensitive. No adult ever saw the boys touch her, so they said that was her word against theirs. She was made to feel the bad guy for "rocking the boat".

By the time she told me about it, she had started retaliating when the other kids struck her. That was brought up at one of the meetings, and i told them that I saw nothing wrong with her defending herself. As far as I was concerned, she could have hit them harder and she would have gotten a high five from me. Some people may not agree with that sentiment, but seeing my child pushed to her breaking point, crying she was so tired of it, brings out my wrath.

So I decided I could do a better job, keep her safe, and let her enjoy what childhood she has left. Once I took her out of school, she started blossoming. The only thing I regret about the whole situation, is that I wish she had told me sooner. I didn't even know about the name calling. I feel that in a way, she was trying to protect me from what she was going through, when I should have been protecting her.

Yes, I do think the school is responsible for my child's safety and well being when she was there, but it ultimately came back to me. I had to make the decision to keep her safe, I had make the decision to take the school out of the equation, and I am the one to always put her best interests first.

 

This, exactly!

I'm so sorry your daughter had to go through all that.

 

I believe that the school is responsible to provide a safe environment for the children in their care. If this one child is continually causing problems then that one child needs to be dealt with, period. However if a child is continually being bullied by many children, then I feel that is ultimately the parent's responsibility to protect their child. Yes the school should do everything they can to discourage bullying, but in the end when you have one child that is being picked on by multiple children it becomes a difficult situation to control, how do you tell an entire class that they are not allowed to pick on one student without either causing embarrassment for the student, or creating a situation where the other children are going to react in retaliation?

Yes the school should have notified the parent, yes they should have taken what ever steps they could to prevent it, but ultimately that girl was her parent's daughter and it's their responsibility to protect her and make the choice to do what it takes to keep her safe.

Honestly though all things considered what did they really think was going to happen when you allow your daughter to sign up and be the ONLY female on the wrestling team? You know the perceived weakling or oddball is generally the one picked on in almost every species not just humans.

 

Depending on the child, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Some kids are able to take "odd one out" status and make it work for them, perhaps through sheer force of personality. Instead of making them targets, it makes them special.

While it's true that in uncontrolled situations the weak can be picked on, strong adult leadership can go a LONG way to preventing this. My children's schools not only react promptly to reports of bullying (as I described above), but also have a number of programs in place to teach empathy and caring to the children. (The best, IMO, is the one where they pair older children with younger ones through the school year.)

And it works! I've sat through talent shows, in a room full of middle schoolers who are nothing but supportive and caring to kids on the stage, no matter how fat, how untalented, how badly they mess up their routines. My daughter should have been an easy target - she's too smart, too impulsive, and she looks different. But the one time a girl made a nasty comment about her scars, the other girls in the room stood right up and said, "You can't say that to her!"

I'm not saying bullying never occurs in our schools, it does, but just not in the "pack" sense of everyone turning on the weakest. The adult leadership has taught the children that the weak should be protected (or at least ignored, if you really can't stand them). And when bad stuff happens, children of good conscience feel empowered to speak up, because they know the adults will hear them and act.

 

That's a big thing, right there. If a kid knows that they will be supported, rather than becoming the next victim, they will speak up. And sometimes it only takes one to say something to turn a group.

Carl THINKS this is what happened with Phillip. We've a very nice boy at the end of the street who is Phillip's age. I was really encouraging their friendship. Met his parents; they seem like very nice people. But suddenly Phillip really didn't want anything to do with this boy, won't say why. Carl thinks Phillip and the little boy (younger) across the street were playing with him (and some others that are down that way), and someone started picking on Michael because he's younger. He thinks Phillip stood up for Michael, and eventually walked home with him. And hasn't wanted to play with those boys since. Don't know, but Carl's pretty sure. Well, if it IS what happened, I'm proud of him for standing up for his friend.

 

It's both the parents of the bully and the schools responsibility to handle the situation.

When my son was young there was a situation of him being bullied at the bus stop and during recess. He was skinny, had braces, glasses and big ears. I approached the school, they said they have not seen anything but would handle it. They talked to the other kid, but it still continued. One day I parked on a side street and watched during recess while my son was taunted and the aides were busy chatting. I got out of my car and went over to the fence and called to the aides. They said everything was "fine" and "boys will be boys".

On my way home I called my husband and told him what happened. He came home from work with a heavy bag and boxing gloves. Every night he spent in the garage teaching my son how to defend himself. A few weeks later I got a call from the school telling me my son punched this kid and knocked him to the ground at the bus stop. NOW the school wanted to punish MY son. I high tailed it down there, literally high-fived my son, and then sat down with the principal and had a talk. I tried to go through the proper channels and the school did nothing about it. The principal called the other kid and the kid admitted he was taunting my son. Both of them had to stay after school for punishment, but that kid, and no other kid, ever bothered my son again. This was 15 yrs ago, and I know schools supposedly have gotten better with their policies on bullying. I still have two school aged kids, but now we homeschool.

 

Sadly, now with the "zero tolerance" garbage, it would be your son who was expelled and the other boy made out to be the innocent victim. :roll:

 

They had a TV crew at Carl's school this past year because Mom called and said she was withdrawing her son because he was being "bullied". Carl said this boy was one of the biggest troublemakers in the building!

The policy is, if there's a fight, for BOTH involved to have a 3-day suspension. That's because the kid that gets hit USUALLY has done something to bring it on. And it happens too often, unfortunately, for the adults to sort out the truth.

 

I'm sort of OK with that. It's more fair than letting the instigator go free... when there is one.

I was jumped outside of the school once. Three girls pinned me down and beat the tar out of me. I didn't even know two of them. I was bruised and bloody and never swung back. The inciting incident was that I was the lab partner of one of the girl's boyfriend. She wanted to make sure I knew I wasn't allowed to talk to him about anything other than the frog we were dissecting. I got the same week's suspension as the other girls.

That was when my mom changed her rule and told me to fight back. She figured if I was going to get beat to a pulp and punished anyhow, I might as well defend myself. I was suspended two more times that year for similar instances. But I fought back. So at least I left my mark, too. If anything, the "both parties are punished" rule only leads to more violence and intentionally eliminates "innocent" from the mix. I had been a quiet, non-violent girl, but punishing me for being a bully-target made me angry and mean when the fight came to me.

Yeah... that's a great lesson to teach kids :roll:


(This goes back to the idea of bully-targets somehow deserving to be bullied. If the school punishes them, too, then obviously being a geek/ugly-duckling/socially-awkward/whatever kid is a serious offense. How can the child ever think they don't deserve what the bullies dish out?)

 

Depends... not all schools enforce "zero tolerance" policies. Ours doesn't, despite what the district says. In my experience, they generally deal with issues on a case-by-case basis.

My son has a laptop to help with his learning disability. A couple years ago, when it was new, kids couldn't seem to keep their hands off it. One boy in particular kept hitting the "crash" button and forcing my son to reboot his computer. He did it one too many times and my son slapped him upside the head. I got called in, but even as the teacher was telling me this was "very bad and one must never, ever hit another student", he was struggling not to laugh. Then he spent the next fifteen minutes telling me what a great kid my son is, and that was the end of it.

 

It's not a perfect system. And I would have done what your mom did. No, I don't want my kids fighting, but if they're going to get jumped, I want them to at least give as good as they got!

But so many times, I've seen kids push someone's buttons, and then sit back and yell, "HE HIT ME!!!" Well, yeah! If you don't want to be hit, stop pushing his buttons!!! Totally different from picking on a kid because he wears glasses, or is overweight, or something.

Meg, I think how much it's enforced depends on the climate at the school. At my husband's school things are REALLY out of line. As such, it HAS to be "zero tolerance". If you've a school with a good administration that has a good handle on things, you can allow for some (sensible) alternatives.

 

Good for your boy! You have every right to be proud - both of him, and of yourself for teaching him strong values.

I'd just remind him not to write off the mean boys forever. Kids do change.

My son has a friend with a mean streak. He's cut him off a number of times, even uninviting him to his birthday party once after a particularly nasty incident. Each time the friend ends up trying to mend things, and over the years we've seen a definite improvement in his character. He's learned there are certain things my son just won't tolerate (like calling other kids names). And my son's been given many opportunities to practice forgiveness (which is wonderful, as he definitely has a judgmental streak and I didn't want to see him turn out like his Grandpa, holding grudges for decades).

 

Now my oldest was bullied and bullied and bullied. We told him to let the teachers know and principal when it happened. Well they would tell it is alright go back and play. Or they would talk to the kid who in the 5th grade was about 5'7" and weight about 150+ lbs that he needed to be nice to my son who was in the 4th grade little about 4'6" tall and weighed about 70 lbs . Then the larger and older kid would say "well he was bulling me". I almost died of shock when they told me this the last time I called and complained. They told me that my tiny little son was over powering this big kid and bulling him and could do nothing about it.

My son came home a few days after that with a huge red mark on his cheek from being hit by this kid. Dh went to the school right then and blew up on them about it. Well they told him that my son needs to report all of this. We said he did. The last thing dh told the principal was "if you cannot and won't do anything about this I am teaching my kid how to fight back. We will take care of it ourselves." The principal responded with " you cannot do that you son will be suspended for that." Dh said "well I will tell him good job then".

My son did finally have to fight back and really stand up for himself. We did bring him home to hs after that for about 2 years, but he has since went back to ps. He still gets bullied at times, but he does stand up for himself now. He doesn't back down anymore and when they call me in. I tell them I am all for him protecting himself if they are not going to take care of it.

 

Oh and I believe the schools and the parents are responsible. I feel as if the schools should do something to avoid these situations as much as possible. Also the parents need to be responsible for their children and their actions.

 

I agree the schools need to do something. That's why I say you need to document EVERY TIME you contact the school over this issue. Then, when there's a major blow-up, you can show that you tried to deal with it appropriately, and that the school WAS AWARE of the problem.