The original email:
Good morning Principal ______. I'm writing to address the fact that my daughter has been bullied nonstop for two years now, and nothing is being
done about it. I do not like using the word "bullied" because I know
the negative connotations attached to it, yet I can't seem to find
another word to use. Not anymore. I've already spent two years using
words that were not "bullied" in writing and speaking to teachers,
nurses, secretaries, the bus driver, and the bus garage. I'm out of
nicer words. To her credit, the bus driver, a Miss Tina as SS calls
her, has done everything in her power to help my daughter and to keep
her away from the "mean kids" on the bus. While I will be addressing
issues that my daughter has had on the bus, since this is where most of the bullying has
occurred, I will in NO WAY indicate that Miss Tina is not doing her job
to the best of her abilities with the materials provided.
Let's
start with the fact that my daughter is on the autism spectrum and has a
hard time making and keeping friends. She spends most of her time
talking to stuffed animals, bugs, flowers, grass, sticks, trees, etc.
These are her "friends". She calls other children her "friends" but
when pressed, is unable to name them or say what they look like. We're
having a VERY hard time identifying who is hurting her because of this. SS has a lot of love inside of her to give and unfortunately, she
gives it all to plants and animals because they aren't mean to her.
Last
year we had several problems with a child named Zachary. SS was
coming home from school every day with bruises because he was pushing
her down on the playground when no one was looking. When I called the
school about it, all I was told was that they "didn't know about
that". This actually has continued into this year, but her main problem
currently, on the playground anyway, is a child named Richard. We have
told her several times to stay away from him but he pretends to be her
friend and she falls for it every time because she has so few friends.
We even ended up having to ask the teacher to keep them apart
permanantly because he was hurting her physically and emotionally.
Somehow he still managed to hurt her, for a total of eight months before
she snapped and beat him up. Who got in trouble? She did. Most
recently it's been a boy named D.J. who feels the need to wait until
she's playing quietly by herself in the grass with her "friends" the
flowers before running in and tearing all the grass and flowers up,
essentially killing her "friends". I'm not sure how long this went on
because the first I heard of
him was when she hit him with a stick. Now we all know that she
shouldn't have done that, but really, how much torture do you think an
eight year old girl can take before she snaps? Especially one with
special needs? I've asked her many times why she doesn't just tell the
teacher, and she tells me that when she tries to all the bullies'
friends gang up on her and won't let her through. The main problem
here, as I see it, is that SS has been picked on and bullied and
ostracized for two years EVERY SINGLE SCHOOL DAY and when she finally
snaps, SHE gets in trouble because she is unable to indicate WHY she did
what she did. Well I'm here to tell you why. I'm also here to tell
you that if I have to, I will come up to the school for every single one
of her breaks and keep an eye on her, since no one else seems to be
able to, and I think two years is long enough to hope for some change.
Moving
on to the issues
on the bus, which surprisingly are the bigger problems, but like I
said, Miss Tina has done everything in her power to fix these problems.
We have Evan, who has been mean to SS since she started riding the
bus. He's rude to her, he says horrible things, he pushes her and
pinches her and pokes her with a pencil. Tina has them separarted but
he still somehow manages to make her cry at least once a month. A
little while ago we had a problem with SS sitting with some of the
older kids, who kept asking her questions like "what's under you
underwear?" and laughing when she couldn't answer. These kids told her
that if she didn't stop talking they would "kill her parents and her
brother". She was hysterical that day. As far as I know, Tina and the
staff of the bus garage took care of that.
This brings us to
this past Friday. SS got off the bus and was absolutely
inconsolable. When asked
for details she kept saying that it was "the worst day" and that
someone on the bus had punched her. She had a fat lip. Again we have
no idea who, only that it was "a boy and a girl". I will follow with an
essay of sorts that SS wrote for us because she was unable to
verbalize what had happened to her that day:
"I went to breakfast. Then, I went to the playground. Someone threw
bark at me! When I went to stretch D.J. pushed me, and I fell. I was
good until recess. I fell. My friends didn't let my other
friend/sister play airplane. I took off my nail at math. And it bled.
On the way to lunch, I fell down. My body felt squeezy but I wasn't
hurt. So, when it was the end of recess, I got splashed by water,
because the sink sprayed water too far. When I went to the cafeteria,
they served strawberry milk. Everything was good, until I went in the
bus line. I found a tiny crystal, but someone pushed me and made me
drop it. I felt sorry for the crystal, and then it reminded me of all
the bad things that happened. I started to cry. Miss Tina felt sorry
for me. When I got on the bus a girl said to a boy 'How do we make her
stop crying'. The boy said 'I don't know, maybe this will work', and
squirted me with water. Then, I cried more. Then, the girl said 'Maybe
I can punch her', and then she punched me. Finally, that's when I got
home"
This kind of thing
has been happening for two years. I am reaching the end of my capacity
to deal with the school on these issues, as I constantly feel like I am
not being heard at all. At this point, I'm feeling like I have to ride
the bus with her to and from school, and sit on the playground with her,
just so she can feel safe. That is NOT okay. Children are supposed to
enjoy
school. It's supposed to be a safe place where they can make friends
and have fun. My daughter is getting none of that, and she is falling
through the cracks, and the worst part is that she is getting in trouble
for hurting the kids that have hurt her for YEARS before she did
anything in retaliation. I do not want to have to pull her out of
public school as we have already had to do that with JJ, but if
that's what it takes to keep my daughter safe, rest assured that I will
do so. And I will be sure to let the school board know WHY I did that,
because how many other kids is this happening to? How many others are
coming home with unexplained bruises? How many can't sleep at night
because they know they're going to be tortured in the morning? You say
you have a "strict bullying policy", but the actual bullies are STILL
getting away with it every single day, while the ones who finally fight
back are being
labeled as the "bullies". I implore you, do something about it.
PLEASE. Because these are the kids that are going to lose it. The ones
who are ignored. The ones who are "dramatic". The ones who can't even
tell a teacher because the other kids gang up on them, or because they
know that if they DO manage to tell, the other kids will say they're
lying, and they'll get it even worse next recess. The ones who live in
fear are the ones that feel the need to bring a weapon to school to
protect themselves. I can tell you that we don't have any of those in
our house, but I can't tell you that NOBODY does. Do you want to take
that risk? Please, Principal Paturel, protect these children. PLEASE.
His paltry (and dismissive) reply:
Thank
you for taking the time to write me your email message. It means a lot
to me that you would take the time to share with me at length your
feelings.
I
agree with you in full that we want our campus to be free of
intimidation, harassment and bullying for ALL students. I make this
issue my most important
concern.
I will certainly address this issue. I will bring this to the attention of the teacher as well as the bus department.
Please let me know if there are further concerns.
Thankyou,
Her retort: (sarcasm is intended)
Principal _______,
I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to write a note back to me. However, and with all due respect, the teacher and the bus garage already know about this. We have talked to them both several times. The teacher does her best to keep SS separated from Richard and the bus garage never called us with a follow-up after the incident where a girl told SS that she was going to "kill both your parents and your brother so you're all alone". I'm not sure if they just couldn't distinguish on their cameras who it was so nothing ever happened, or if they just didn't want to release the name of the child. I am not worried about the names of the children involved in beating my child to an emotional pulp. I have no desire to take revenge on children. What I want is for my daughter to be watched more carefully. I don't want her interrogated because she's not going to be able to answer your questions no matter what. She doesn't have that capability, and all that's going to do is cause her to be an emotional mess when she gets home. I just want her kept safe. I have to fight with her every morning to go to school. She has night terrors until almost two o'clock in the morning every night. No child should have to go through any of that as a result of going to school!
As for what I know needs to happen, she needs to have a full, formal IEP done. The buses need better cameras or maybe the aide could be sitting in the back instead of in the front. For a while we had SS sitting up front so no one could bother her, but again, that just makes her feel like she's being punished for what someone else did. You can also consider this a formal request for an IEP. Yes, she does not meet the educational gap, but it is apparent to anyone with any training that she is emotionally and socially about four years younger than her actual age.
As principal of her school, I appreciate your willingness to take an active hand in this. It's nice to know that kids can get one on one help when they need it and that, as they used to tell us in grade school, her principal really is her "pal". I look forward to working with you towards resolving this issue and helping my daughter achieve a healthy emotional state.
Thank you,
I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to write a note back to me. However, and with all due respect, the teacher and the bus garage already know about this. We have talked to them both several times. The teacher does her best to keep SS separated from Richard and the bus garage never called us with a follow-up after the incident where a girl told SS that she was going to "kill both your parents and your brother so you're all alone". I'm not sure if they just couldn't distinguish on their cameras who it was so nothing ever happened, or if they just didn't want to release the name of the child. I am not worried about the names of the children involved in beating my child to an emotional pulp. I have no desire to take revenge on children. What I want is for my daughter to be watched more carefully. I don't want her interrogated because she's not going to be able to answer your questions no matter what. She doesn't have that capability, and all that's going to do is cause her to be an emotional mess when she gets home. I just want her kept safe. I have to fight with her every morning to go to school. She has night terrors until almost two o'clock in the morning every night. No child should have to go through any of that as a result of going to school!
As for what I know needs to happen, she needs to have a full, formal IEP done. The buses need better cameras or maybe the aide could be sitting in the back instead of in the front. For a while we had SS sitting up front so no one could bother her, but again, that just makes her feel like she's being punished for what someone else did. You can also consider this a formal request for an IEP. Yes, she does not meet the educational gap, but it is apparent to anyone with any training that she is emotionally and socially about four years younger than her actual age.
As principal of her school, I appreciate your willingness to take an active hand in this. It's nice to know that kids can get one on one help when they need it and that, as they used to tell us in grade school, her principal really is her "pal". I look forward to working with you towards resolving this issue and helping my daughter achieve a healthy emotional state.
Thank you,
No comments:
Post a Comment