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Success Story:
How
I Dealt with Bullying & Harassment in School
I
was helping the mother of a young girl in elementary school. The
girl was being harassed by a group of four boys. The harassment
involved comments about race and sex that became increasingly
explicit and threatening as time went on.
The teachers ignored it. When the parent talked to the principal, he acted as if the girl was causing the problem. When the parent talked to the boys' parents, the principal told the parents that the girl was causing trouble and the mother was over-reacting.
Bottom line: The teachers and principal were aware of the problem, blamed the child/victim, and refused to protect her from bullying and harassment by the boys.
I
printed three copies of Protecting
Students from Harassment and Hate Crimes, a publication from
the
U. S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights and National
Association of Attorneys General. Protecting
Students from Harassment and Hate Crimes provides guidance
about protecting students from harassment and violence based on
race, color, national origin, sex, and disability.
The parent gave one copy to the school principal, one copy to
the superintendent, and kept one copy for herself. The parent
said they acted like they had never seen the publication before.
There was one more incident after this, then the boys were made to stop.
Since the same problem probably exists in other schools in our district, I printed copies of Protecting Students from Harassment and Hate Crimes and mailed them to the middle school and high school principals. I also sent copies to the school board members.
A short time later, I read in the newspaper that our school district's harassment policy was being "rewritten to reflect federal guidelines."
This
strategy was successful and fairly inexpensive. The cost to print
a copy of Protecting
Students from Harassment and Hate Crimes (169 pages) was about
$17. I sent copies to people who had the power to protect this
child and to the superintedent and school board members
who make policies in our school district.
This was much less expensive than hiring an attorney - and it
caused our school district to change their existing and ineffective
policies on harassment and bullying.
More
Success Stories
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You Have a Success Story?
Do
you have a success story or advocacy strategy that you want to share?
We are collecting stories about successful advocacy from parents and other advocates. We will post some of these stories on the Wrightslaw site and others on a new parent advocacy site.
If you are interested in submitting a success story or strategy, please send an email to: success@wrightslaw.com
In the Subject line of your email, type SUCCESS STORY in caps.You will receive an autoresponder email that contains details about our submissions policy. Please do not send an article until after you read and review the Submissions Policy.
Send
your success story or strategy by email to: success@wrightslaw.com
In the subject line of your email, type SUCCESS.
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