Student attacked in bathroom of elementary school

[Anonymous]

Looking for some insight on what I should expect the school to do in this matter.

My son is in 2nd grade. He went with a buddy to a bathroom near the cafeteria during lunch. There were 1st graders in the bathroom and the kids were talking. Two older kids (5th or 6th grade) come in and start yelling for the younger kids to fight each other. One of the 1st graders starts punching my son. My son runs out of the bathroom, back to the cafeteria. He tells the cafeteria monitor and the assistant principal who is in the cafeteria what happened. He goes to the school nurse, who tells him he is fine because there are no bruises.

No one from the school called us to tell us what happened. No one called the parents of the boy who hit my son. No one is monitoring the bathroom or trying to figure out what class the older boys are in, which should be fairly easy to narrow down since the boys would have likely come from a class that was in cafeteria at the time. Assistant principal says he believes the boys were just playing around.

My son is fine physically, but bothered by what happened and scared to go to the bathroom at school. I am considering calling the parents of the boy who hit my son, not because I am mad at the kid, but because if my kid was being bullied into fighting another kid, I would want to know about it.

[Anonymous]

Document document document! Send an email to the principal and your cluster asst. Superintendent immediately! Request an incident report. The school may tell you that they are not sure what an incident report is, or they may not if you include the cluster asst. superintendent. I feel really bad for your son, but he did the right thing! I am rally proud of him for running out and reporting this to TH higher ups. Now you need to the same. http://www.fcps.edu/clusters/

[Anonymous]

Read the book "Protecting The Gift" and know that bad stuff happens in schools all to often and parents need to protect their kids. Also, if you dont write it and have a paper trail it is as if the incident never happened.

[Anonymous]

OMG. I would want to see the older kids disciplined in some way. Bullying by proxy is an extra level of deviant in my mind. There is something more wrong with a 5th grader who thinks it fun to incite two younger kids to fight than it would be if a 5th grader was fighting for himself.

NO CHILD should be afraid to go to the bathroom. Your child needs to hear from the principal that this was very wrong and that the bullies are being punished. Your child shoudl feel protected by the admin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Document document document! Send an email to the principal and your cluster asst. Superintendent immediately! Request an incident report. The school may tell you that they are not sure what an incident report is, or they may not if you include the cluster asst. superintendent. I feel really bad for your son, but he did the right thing! I am rally proud of him for running out and reporting this to TH higher ups. Now you need to the same. http://www.fcps.edu/clusters/

Absolutely. Even if "nothing happened" which I doubt because this is a very elaborate story for your kid to make up out of the blue. The school should be following up on it to find out what DID happen. Bad form that no one from the school has contacted you. Just want to second ^^ who says to use email. You may eventually have a meeting, but you need email to document dates and times that you attempted to contact administration. When you do end up doing face-to-face meetings, take notes.

Also agree with ^^ that you should lavish praise on your son for the way he handled himself.

[Anonymous]

I'd wait a week and see if your son is still upset.

Getting a reputation as a tattletale and mama's boy has its own cost.

[Anonymous]

PP, you really are an idiot. This boy is neither a tattletale or a mamma's boy. The boy did the absolutely right thing and the mom is doing the right thing by reporting this via email to the proper administration officials. OP do NOT wait a week, do not wait a day! You need to protect your child. The fact the older boys instigated a fight between youngsters is sickening and should have serious consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd wait a week and see if your son is still upset.

Getting a reputation as a tattletale and mama's boy has its own cost.

I was a winy baby mommas girl and was bullied in school. Momma didn't protect me nor did teachers and when I think about it, I still get pissed. This kid is in first grade! He must be protected.

[Anonymous]

Do not call the parents of bully. Immediately go to the school and demand a meeting with the principal. It will probably be a farce but gives you cover to go to the superintendents office. This needs to be documented and addressed.

[Anonymous]

I know this will be an unpopular comment, but it is meant with the best intent. What kind I ridicule is he going to face for 1) being beat up by a first grader? 2) tattling? 3) having his mom get involved? I would be mad too, but unless you've heard of bullying problems, or discipline problems at the school, I would tell the administrator of your upset, but let it go other than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know this will be an unpopular comment, but it is meant with the best intent. What kind I ridicule is he going to face for 1) being beat up by a first grader? 2) tattling? 3) having his mom get involved? I would be mad too, but unless you've heard of bullying problems, or discipline problems at the school, I would tell the administrator of your upset, but let it go other than that.

This is ridiculous. The issue to me isn't even the punching--the older boys who instigated this need to be dealt with. They are bullies, and the next incident could escalate. And, of course, because we teach our kids not to "tattle," (which just means we teach them to lie), and we teach our boys to man up, then the natrual response is to let it go. Infuriating.

I feel bad for your son, OP, but I also feel bad for the first grader who felt intimidated enough to follow the orders of much larger boys. This needs to be handled immediately. The school needs to talk to the older kids who did this and get it under control.

Any other suggestion is outdated thinking that allows this shit to continue to happen unchecked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know this will be an unpopular comment, but it is meant with the best intent. What kind I ridicule is he going to face for 1) being beat up by a first grader? 2) tattling? 3) having his mom get involved? I would be mad too, but unless you've heard of bullying problems, or discipline problems at the school, I would tell the administrator of your upset, but let it go other than that.

In this case it sounds like the school was not properly monitoring the students and the bathroom areas, and also OP will want to make sure her kid (and all the kids) are not afraid of the bathroom - that could cause other problems. I would be more hesitant to bring it up if it was one student "being mean" to another- but in this case I do think the OP needs to follow up with the administration.

Kids shouldn't feel unsafe in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd wait a week and see if your son is still upset.

Getting a reputation as a tattletale and mama's boy has its own cost.

Do you also think studying is for suckers?

[Anonymous]

Tattling is when your kid tells the teacher "Mary was talking," or "Johnny was drawing on the desk" or "Billy was picking his nose."

It's NOT Tattling when someone is going to get hurt or kids are afraid to use the bathroom.

When I was a kid in a Catholic school, there was a gangly red-headed boy who was getting pee'd on in the bathroom and beat on. I only heard bits and pieces, but as I look back now, that poor kids was scared to DEATH to go to the bathroom (and he wasn't a 1st grader). As a parent, it breaks my heart to think of that kid and the hell he went through. The school apparently didn't do enough to protect him. It's NOT tattling to make the bathroom safe.

[Anonymous]

OP please tell us what you decide to do.