School Bully's

[mousecrazy 2]

The schools are a reflection of "political correctiness gone wrong" and a society who is all-too-willing to sue school districts for just about anything. As a society, we have allowed the victimization defense to be considered legitimate, and here we are. Both kids receive the same "punishment" so that no administrator has to make a "judgement." It's not fair to judge, after all. (I'm being sarcastic on purpose....)

Example: there was a fight between two girls in the parking lot. A male student tried to protect one of the girls, his friend, and had to push the other girl off of her. He was expelled, along with the two girls. Wouldn't want to treat him unfairly.

So, Paula, walking away is one response to bullying, and can be useful. For repeated bullying, I believe something else is in order. Having issues at home, in my mind, does not excuse bullying behavior, and if more parents would rise up and demand a different response from the schools, I guarantee you something would change. They live in fear of parents more than anything, except lawsuits and negative media attention.

Things have certainly changed since I started teaching, 29 years ago. Take care of your kids; no one else is likely to.

[Marimaru 7]

I don't have kids yet, but in my mind, I would just keep going up the ladder until I got a response that I thought might have any lasting effect. If the principal is only going to suspend him, you can go up to the superintendant, etc up to the school board, or you can go up to the police, and file a charge against the boy. At that age, it usually just involved a citation, which means a fine for the parents, which may or may not do anything to the boy the first time, but a few of those and he'll end up in a detention center.

I do think that kids should be encouraged to defend themselves, as long as you have a good moral Fiber attached.

I kind of cringe to think what schools are going to be like when I have kids. They are banning tag from schools now. Not too long before the ban sharp pencils...