Dear JCPS,
My name is R and my son attended XXXXXX Middle for his 6th and 7th grade years in the XXXX program. 6th grade was fine but 7th grade was absolutely the worst. When I discovered that my son was being bullied, I immediately contacted the school in which the assistant 7th grade principal attempted to resolve the issue. The bullying continued for my son and a friend of his. After a few reports, the asst principal had attitude with me and tried to say that all other incidents were irrelevant and I should let them go. At that point I went to the principal, Mrs XXXXX, who at first made me feel like she was going to resolve the issues. Needless to say, issues continued daily with these bullies and Mrs XXXXX would do was remove the child from the gym class for a day. I escalated above Mrs XXXXX and began including Mrs XXXXX on all emails and Donna Hargens in hopes that someone would see what was going on and jump in. At that time, Mrs XXXXX requested that the JCPS bullying specialist team meet with my son and others at the school and get to the bottom of it
The team met with my son and in the end, they offered to transfer my son, the victim of 5 bullies, to a “special” school. As the lady said, for kids like him. As a parent, this ticked me off even more as my child was the victim and JCPS was quick to try to shove him to a new school and shove me and my voice under the rug. I refused to accept a transfer to the “special” school.
My son continued to be scared to go to school, go to Mrs XXXXX personally to report issues and still, nothing was being done. It got to the point to where I was emailing everyone above on a daily basis and demanded security in the gym class. Both Mrs XXXXX and Mrs XXXXXX continued to tell me lies on what they were doing to try to shut me up when it would quickly come out that they didn’t do what they said they would do.
I requested they allow my son to complete school from home with me picking up his work and Mrs XXXXX approved. The next week, Mrs XXXXX said they couldn’t approve that and that Mrs XXXXX was in the wrong for saying she would. Funny because I had the email that XXXXX approved it herself. I had my son do kprep testing in Mrs XXXXX office and I would pick him up when completed, for his safety. When I met with Mrs XXXXX and Mrs XXXXX about my son missing the rest of the year if they couldn’t allow him to work from an office, they both immediately threatened me with a truancy. So not only was my child bullied by the students but him and I were bullied by the principal and asst superintendent. I ended up taking my son to his counselor and she wrote a letter advising that for his safety, he was to finish the school year, last week, from home . They both knew that if my child was in school that last week, he would have gotten seriously hurt by these punks.
I escalated above Mrs XXXXXX and her email to her boss indicated that she can’t seem to do anything to please me and asked her boss to contact me. This was around the beginning of June. Today is December 2nd and I have yet to hear from her boss.
I applied for a transfer immediately for this year to only be denied. So I was left with homeschooling my child for this year. Amazing how a child can be bullied by 5 students and JCPS refuses to allow the kid to move to another school. It’s like they all wanted my child to get hurt.
Because XXXXXX and JCPS refused to do anything, I met with the school officer who then met with my child to review what happened. The officer contacted me and said he was filing a police report on the 5 students and filing charges for harassment, menacing and terroristic threatening to the 2nd degree.
My son and I have been through hell and I cried every day because of what my son was going through and knowing that the principal told him over and over that she was there to protect him when all she did was put him out there to get hurt more. My son lives in fear every where he goes, thanks to you. He deals with anxiety now, thanks to you.
I shouldn’t of had to file charges against the students and put my son through this nightmare all over again because Mrs XXXXX, Mrs XXXXX, the bullying specialist team, Donna Hargens and JCPS sat back and shoved us under the rug. You should know that even the judge in our court cases asked why the hell JCPS didn’t handle this situation.
Shame on all of you. Let’s put you or your children in a room and bully you daily for 8 months over and over again. See how you feel about it. Thank you for showing me that JCPS SUPPORTS BULLYING. You have opened my eyes to how you fail to handle everything.
Following the story about Noe’s lawsuit, we received this additional letter:
I am so glad I didn’t accept the transfer to Noe and kept him home schooled for the year. If my son had gotten bullied again, I see it wouldn’t have been any different there than at XXXXXXX. And it shows that JCPS policies in handling a bullying situation aren’t there. This has to be stopped. JCPS is showing that they care more about the bullies than the victims. I’m glad that mother had a lawsuit and I’m glad I filed charges last year on the 5 bullies. With my cases, the judges have seen that those boys have issues and they are getting the help they need. Sad thing is, none of their parents cared enough to see they were troubled. It took me filing the charges.
It sickens me every day when I see a facebook feed of another issue in another JCPS school.
How do we get the board to see they aren’t allowing their schools to handle these issues properly? Their bullying specialist team is a joke. Not sure why they even have one as you saw in my email that they didn’t want to do anything at XXXXX but to remove my son.
I’m still extremely bothered by how we were treated by admin staff and lack of response from Hargens and her folks. I’m still waiting for Mrs XXXXX boss to contact me from her email in June escalating to him. What does that show you?
I have another story about when my son received a death threat in 5th grade. That principal, Dr XXXX was going to allow the child back in school after writing he would kill my son and a girl friend of his. I had to escalate up to XXXXX who was director of student relations at the time and he expelled the child that day.
Let me know if you need any more information. I want to help put a stop to this. I shouldn’t have to pay to homeschool my child because of them. I thought about filing a suit months ago against JCPS and make them pay to put my son in a private school but never did. My daughter is in 5th grade and I’ve already said, if we can’t get into the XXXXX for both of my kids, then I’m moving to NOT be in JCPS school district.
Thank you,
R.
(The identifying information has been removed from this post. However, Dear JCPS has this information and board members are welcome and encouraged to contact their Dear JCPS Liaison to investigate these matters further in order to pursue resolution.)
