If your middle-schooler got hit in/after school, WDYD?

[Anonymous]

MCPS parent here. My child was hit, pushed, came home bleeding, and had a small item stolen from him. I called the school and was put into an administrator's voice mail. I followed up with an email with photos. Zero response.

My child sent an email to their counselor with the same photos and asked to have their schedule changed to avoid the person who hit them. That got things moving, though the counselor never once reached out to me. The kid who did the hitting got a schedule change and lunch detention (my kid refused restorative justice as prior experience showed him it was a waste of time). Administrators hear so much complaining from so many parents that I think they ignore all of it. Pursue all paths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would send an email immediately and be at the school first thing tomorrow morning to meet with Vice Principal. I’d expect immediate consequences for other child.
I know my kid wouldn’t instigate being assaulted.
She’s at private so I know it would be handled. We had issues with a new kid in Jan calling my kid names including the N word on her first day. It was handled immediately.

I'm glad your private handled it well, but we aware that there's nothing that guarantees that a private is going to deal with bullying any better than a public school. And if you hang out much on the private school board, you'll see that a lot of them have mastered turning a blind eye to bullying.

[Anonymous]

OP here; it's a friend but I'm still getting few details. It could be fun getting out of hand but my kid was in a horrible mood and is now refusing to go to school. This kid is more privileged than mine and my kid was called a pretty horrible name. If mine provoked, it was verbal but that doesn't justify hitting. Unsure if there were witnesses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lot of details but I just found out and curious what you did as I get to face this tomorrow. I also feel so sick that my kid was assaulted.

We had this situation recently too. Didn’t overreact, but wanted school to follow up (they originally didn’t do anything even though the incident was reported). The kid who assaulted our child waited until we contacted the school and made up a story how he was provoked. No witnesses, so it was hard to prove anything and, even though our kid has no history of creating any sort of trouble, our kid had more severe consequences in the end.

From our lesson learned, depending on the relationship you have with the school, I would first want to find out more. If you can get witnesses willing to support your child’s claim, it should be easy to insist on the school follow up.

This exact experience in FCPS. It’s disgusting.