Friday, October 15, 2010

I'm taking Timmy out of school. I have to.

I'm going to have to remove him from school and homeschool him.  The school will not protect him.  They are more interested in protecting their own asses. :(

I took the boys to school today and went in and asked if I could talk to the principal.  I really wanted to talk to her about what had been happening and how it was (NOT) being handled by the busing supervisor.

I started at the beginning.  Explaining how he had been bullied since pre-k.  I told her I had always followed the rules by going to the busing supervisor, except for the one time when I came to her.  I told her that it seemed like nothing was ever done about the bullying.
She informed me "You don't KNOW that.  How can you sit there and say that?  We don't tell you how we handle it because you have NO RIGHT to know.  Just know that we DO take care of things.  WHY are you just NOW coming to me about this?"
I told her that I HAD come to her back in Prek about it, but since nothing seemed to be done, I continued to go to the busing supervisor, especially since SHE (the principal) had told me to make sure I went through the proper chain of command in the future.  And honestly, I do feel like nothing was done to help Timmy in pre-k, except to traumatise him more.  A child had pulled his books out of his backpack and wrote "f-ck" on all of them.  Timmy had told me that B___ had done it.  When I talked to the principal I told her who Timmy said did it.  She asked B___ if he did it.  He said no.  SOOOoooooo... she went out the next morning and took Timmy off the bus and had in stand at the foot of the bus steps and as the kids got off the bus, she asked him "Is this the kid that did it?"  Timmy clammed up and didn't say anything, so she said that nothing could or would be done.  Do you blame Timmy for not outing the kid?  I mean ... really?  He was so upset about that whole thing!
Anyway, after her telling me I had no right to know what happened, I was even more upset in her office.  She called the busing supervisor while I was in there and Mary Ann told her that two children said that Timmy was the one calling people retard on the bus, and that HE was at fault in all of this.  WTF?!  Ya know, if my kid DID do it, I would discipline him, but come ON!  Niko came to me first and told me what happened on the bus, then Timmy was crying and telling me he wanted to die ... but he was the one being a bully?  I think not!

I informed her that if they couldn't protect him, that I'd have to pull him from school and homeschool him.  She let me know that they would NOT continue any of his therapy sessions (speech therapy, occupational therapy, social therapy) if I pulled him.  I told her I was under the impression that they HAD to.  She said no.

She said she would call me back by noon after looking into this further.

I walked out in tears.

She called me back an hour later and told me that she had looked up the regulations, and that they would have to provide services for him.

The assistant principal called me back an hour after that to tell me that she had pulled the videos from the bus from yesterday and that nothing happened on the bus.  They could not see nor hear anything on the bus.  So I asked how that could be since Mary Ann had told the principal that TIMMY was calling people retard on the bus.  She didn't know the answer to that.
She said that she had looked at the tapes of when CH had punched Timmy in the face as well and that Timmy and him were goofing around, so he wasn't bullied.  I told her that even if they WERE goofing around (and I did get on Timmy for that), that no one should punch him in the mouth hard enough for him to lose a tooth!  She agreed and told me that both Timmy and CH were talked to about it.
She said I'm not allowed to watch the videos due to confidentiality, but another school official could look at them for me and tell me what was on it.  Huh?  Like I'm really trusting of anyone at the school right now.
She said they could find Timmy a buddy on the bus and that buddy would sit with him to help look out for him ... but that was all they could do.
She also doesn't understand how he can be so depressed at home.  She sees him at school all the time and he is always happy THERE.

Yeah.  So screw them all.  They won't protect him.  I'm taking him out for his own protection.

3 comments:

  1. I am so sorry you are having to deal with this :(

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  2. I am appalled at the way this whole thing is being dealt with by the school. It is wrong on so many levels; but of course I don't have to tell you that. . . {hugs} to you guys.

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  3. I know I am abit late on this subject but if you continue to have problems with the school please let me know I am in New York state and have been fighting this for 17 years through EI, CPSE, and CSE. My son has always been the root of all bullying problems. I was able to force my school district to retrain its entire staff on how to deal with ASD children becuase they were helping raise naive children into naive adults who couldn't deal with ppl who were different. WHen the superintendant of transportation is swearing at you on the phone because you are driving him nuts you have finally done your job. There is a problem when the administration doesn't look out for our children but they help to bully. There is also new legislation that is alot stronger to stop bullying and has put the schools in a spot where they have to deal with it and document for public record that they are dealing with the problem or face federal intervention ie losing their funding. As September approaches please know you arenot alone and other parents are fighting this same battle for their children

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