Parents of bullied kids hiring lawyers, suing school districts

[marmar]

Parents of bullied kids hiring lawyers, suing school districts
In Central Florida and elsewhere, more families are suing school boards, saying they're to blame

January 29, 2011|By Rene Stutzman, Orlando Sentinel


Ned Charles IV has a form of cerebral palsy. The 15-year-old is in special-education classes. So was the boy who hit him, grabbed his neck and pushed him to the ground while waiting for a school bus two years ago at Tuskawilla Middle School.

Ned's parents are now suing the Seminole County School Board, alleging that the boy who hurt their son had bullied him for days and that the district should have stopped it.

Their suit is part of a growing trend in Central Florida and nationally: Parents are hiring lawyers and suing school districts, accusing them of letting schoolyard bullies frighten, intimidate and sometimes beat up their children.

The uptrend started around 2007, said Sonja Trainor, senior staff attorney at the National School Boards Association in Alexandria, Va. And some people and agencies have begun treating bullying as a public-health threat. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-01-29/news/os-school-bullying-suits-20110129_1_seminole-suit-school-districts-ned-julian

[bobbolink]

1. Sadly, this is the only way it is going to stop.

"It'll get better" my ass! Sue the pants off them!

"And some people and agencies have begun treating bullying as a public-health threat. ."

:applause:

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Good.

Schools ignored bullying for too long. They've done better lately but still have a ways to go.

[bluestateguy]

3. That's fine, but I'd like to see school bullies permanently denied an education

OK, no, I'm just kidding, but I do think school bullies should be punished in a way that will follow them around for life.

[Posteritatis]

4. I'd like to see them punished *at all*. (nt)

[pipoman]

29. For life? Really?

What like branding their forehead? We don't even brand child murderers..

[Starry Messenger]

5. k&r

[Initech]

6. Oh how I wish I had done that when I was in high school.

[bluestateguy]

8. Visualize: little weasel school principals being forced to give depositions under oath

It gives me a chill up the spine. Very gratifying.

[barbiegeek]

7. Beating up a Disabled child is a Hate Crime

[davidinalameda]

20. the kid who beat him up was probably disabled as well

they were in the same special ed class

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Tell me what court

I WANT to write an Amicus

[BeyondGeography]

10. Very healthy

:thumbsup:

[ncteechur]

11. As a former principal, substantiating bullying isn't as easy as you might think.

Certainly when you have evidence, it is much easier and whenever a child reports bullying it should be investigated but it is not always easy to prove or even investigate. Principals in NC can suspend for up to 10 days but can't suspend for longer without local board approval.

A new bullying law in NC has made it much more serious than it once was and I think NC schools, at least in my district, take it much more serious than they used to.

[ncteechur]

12. Why wouldn't parents of bullied kids sue the other kids and their families?

If I get into an accident because some yahoo hits me with their car, I don't sue DOT. I sue the jackass that hit me.

I'm not excusing the school but why not go after the parents of the bully?

[bluestateguy]

13. By all means, if the school bully is from a wealthy family, go ahead!

If the school bully is a rich Mean Girl type whose parents have a lot of money, then that strategy may be effective.

But if the school bully lives in a trailer park with an alcoholic unemployed mother and an absentee father, then suing is kind of a waste of time.

[bobbolink]

15. That is a really poor equation, and I suspect you know it. DOT isn't in charge of drivers, only

the roads.

Schools are in charge of the kids.... except when they don't take the responsibility.

[NutmegYankee]

25. What can a court do?

The bully obvious has no respect for law and civility, so even a restraining order will be likely ineffective. The bullies parents will just be outraged by your accusations against their "precious innocent" child, but are probably too high on crack or meth to make the bully stop.

My parents tried court, and it didn't stop it. You know what did? One day I finally had enough and beat that fucking kid to within one inch of his life. That remains the only way to stop it. Period. Courts, schools, parents, police - They all Failed!

[Posteritatis]

26. The DOT isn't responsible for the conduct of drivers on the roads

Schools are responsible for the conduct of their students.

[leftynyc]

32. Messaging - suing the parents

will do nothing to give the schools the message this is their responsibility during school hours. if they have to cough up a huge punishment, then they'll learn.

[ThomCat]

14. "School districts want to fight bullying as much as parents do"

:rofl:

Really? Has anyone ever really seen a school district where this is true?

In my experience kids who are bullied and want to school to do something about it are then either ignored or bullied again by the school for "expecting others to solve their problems for them." The attitude is that if they claim they are bullied they are exaggerating the problem, making unnecessary work for the school, which makes THEM the trouble maker, and means that they are the ones that should be punished.

The kids who are supposedly the bully is almost always more popular, has friends behind him/her, or at least a gang. So that kid is seen as someone who knows how to speak up for himself or herself, take care of problems without burdening the school with them, and becomes the good guy.

It is a sick turn-around. By complaining, the victim becomes the bad guy, and as long as the attacker tends to be quiet and well mannered, the attacker becomes the good guy.

So the school districts want to fight to fight bullying? Um... No, they want to fight accusations of bullying.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Exactly. In my day, they "fought bullying" by blaming the bullied kids.

I hope things have changed drastically, but I suspect they haven't that much.

[bobbolink]

22. The path of oppression is always the same. Blame the victim. As in homelessness, also.

[bobbolink]

21. Oh yeah....the school district included ...Columbine.

"No, they want to fight accusations of bullying. "

BINGO!

Because we all know... "It'll get better." :puke:

[customerserviceguy]

16. We need to bring back the concept of 'reform school'.

The bad apples were removed from the barrel, and put in a tough environment. That left school safe for the peaceful kids who wanted to go to school to learn.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. Good.

About time. Well past time.

[SayitAintSo]

19. My little brother was bullied horribly in grade school...

He had occasional incontinence due to a congenital spinal abnormality. The bullies would intentionally hit him from behind in his back to make him lose control of his bowels/bladder and then then tease him horribly because he had 'an accident'. He developed PTSD later in life, had panic attacks, etc. It changed him, and affected him greatly. It horrifies me to this day to see someone bullied. It's like seeing a defenseless animal being beaten. There is a special place in hell for bullies. I'm glad to see people standing up on this issue. Too little is done to address this problem.

[Happyhippychick]

23. I'm in tears.

Your brother's story makes me so sad. I'm sorry he has endured such pain.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

24. Because, of course, the reason bullying isn't stopped overnight is schools not trying.

"We have a problem, let's find someone to blame; punishing them will solve it".

Stupid. The reason schools don't (completely) stop children bullying one another is because no-one has figured out a way to do it.

At present, being bullied is an inevitable (in the literal "there's no way to avoid it") risk of attending school or any other environment with lots of other children. The risk of being sued won't make schools any more able to tackle it. What it *will* do is make them think "what is least likely to get us sued" rather than "what is best for the children in our care" - you'll get a lot of enirely pointless ass-covering measures that won't stop bullying but will make it easier for schools to say "look, we're doing something", and which will have negative side effects.

[distantearlywarning]

27. That isn't true.

There are people who study this sort of thing - what causes ostracism, what influences reaction to deviance in group settings, what sorts of social environments promote an emphasis on conformity rather than tolerance of differences, factors that can cause victims to display more confident behaviors, etc. Many schools could benefit from the application of a little social psychology. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_Classroom

"By arranging the students in culturally and racially diverse groups, Aronson and his team of graduate students were able to reduce the divisions between students. In fact, when one Hispanic boy named Carlos was tormented by his peers for his difficulty with the language, the bullying students were not admonished for their behavior. Instead, they were reminded that the exam was in fifteen minutes, and their sole source of information on the subject was Carlos, the boy they had been harassing. Behavior improved notably and immediately."

"The jigsaw technique was randomly introduced into some classrooms and not introduced into other classrooms. This allowed for comparisons between students in jigsaw classes and those not in jigsaw classes. Students in the jigsaw classes expressed significantly less prejudice and negative stereotyping, more self-confident, and liked school better when tested objectively. Behavioral data supported these self-report measures. Students in jigsaw classes were absent less frequently, intermingled more in the cafeteria and in the school yard, and performed better on objective exams of curricular material—this was especially true for minority students. When compared to students in the traditional classroom students in jigsaw classrooms showed a decrease in prejudice and stereotyping, an increase in liking of their group mates both in-group and out-group members, higher levels of self-esteem, they performed better on standardized exams, had a greater liking of school, showed lower levels of absenteeism, and showed true integration in areas other than the classroom."

The problem is that there are too many people running schools who believe exactly what you do - that nothing can be done, that bullying behavior is inevitable, that group behavior can't be influenced for the better - because they don't know enough about the wealth of social science out there about these kinds of subjects.

[NashVegas]

36. Yeah, There Are Carrots

I was bullied horrible at a new school, in 7th grade, by a group of girls. After they met my attractive older brothers, that song changed. I never made actual friends with any of them, though, it was too late for that. The best you can hope for is tolerance.

[MadHound]

28. So instead of suing those who are really responsible, namely the bully and their parents,

Instead, they sue the school district, even though there were incidents that took place off-campus.

Sorry, but this is simply the family going after whoever has the most money, not who is actually to blame.

[slampoet]

30. I should have done that 25 years ago.

[bobbolink]

33. Sadly, there wouldn't have been the support then that there is now.

It has taken a rask of suicides to get people to think.

Even Columbine didn't get people to actually think.

[Odin2005]

31. K&R

[Robyn66]

35. Hi Odin! (nt)

[Robyn66]

34. GOOD! Maybe something will be done

as the mother of a child with Aspergers who is bullied good for them. Maybe they will get the school to DO SOMETHING. Sometimes it takes legal action to make the school do what it should. My daughter's latest problem was when after being inundated with the troglodytes at her school talking about Jersey Shore non stop and making her crazy she said to a friend in a private conversation "Every time I hear someone talk about Jersey SHore my IQ drops 2 points!" This girl came up to my daughter and said "When I hear someone talk bad about my shows I want to punch them in the face"

So of course I called the school to tell them that this particular girl basically threatened my daughter and she has been mean to her all semester. Unfortunately the schools dont haul the parents in and make them accountable for their little monsters!