Bullying

Our child was mercilessly taunted and ridiculed from the start of attendance at Eisenhower Middle School (EMS), Fall 2006. Our child did absolutely nothing to cause this. It seems that if you're not a jock, or popular, don't have an ipod in your ear or use profanity you can be a target for ridicule and verbal bullying. When we went to the staff dur... ing early 7th grade we were assured that things would get better, the kids were "just testing each other in a new school". In reality, the verbal bullying became far worse, filthy expletives were repeatedly used to harass our child. Our young teen was told repeatedly by several students "you should die", not as a threat, but just to harass. All the while our increasing complaints to the staff were met by statements like "oh, it's just a rite of passage" or "they'll get tired of it eventually". Well, it got worse as time went on, and our student was deeply affected. We now understand that staff who tell you "they'll get tired of it eventually" OR "oh, it's just a rite of passage", are OK'ing the abuse of your child. We strongly believe that aspects of our situation were mishandled by some EMS Guidance staff. One Guidance Counselor horrifically botched the handling of our child's situation. Her "blame the victim, find fault with the victim" route seemed to be the path of least resistance, far easier than taking effective action against bullies. A perfunctory snap judgment against our child was made as a result of her inexperience, along with the facts being misunderstood or twisted. We even found the former Superintendent (D.M.) flipping the facts 180 degrees when we urged him to intervene, then when we called his attention to it, he acknowledged his mistake, but it was a revealing peek into how our situation had been falsely portrayed within staff meetings. We have it documented. Our child was victimized a second time but in this instance by the adult staff charged with protecting students during the school day. While that specific Guidance Counselor is no longer at ...Read More