Residue

I was assaulted by a teacher two years ago. I still hate walking into the school. It’s hard not to look behind me as I exit and not expect this crazy woman coming at me.

I endured one incident. What about a child who has to walk in and out of that building 200 days of the year? Each day holds a promise of another incident. Another assault and tearing away at their person.

The scars last a lifetime.

If you have a loved one who has been bullied and begins acting out of character later in life, you need to consider that it might be PTS. Get them help.

 

Labelled a Bully

I find it interesting when people who don’t understand a situation jump in and defend the so-called victim of a bully when so often they’ve got things backwards. That’s the problem—bullies are good manipulators.

I found myself in exactly this position when I defended a friend from a person who lacked respect and decency. I would like to know when it became okay to call people names and belittle them. Interestingly enough, the person hurting my friend with her verbal assault is a teacher—I wish I could say I was surprised. And why did this happen? My friend had her own opinion and expressed it but her ideas didn’t agree with the bully’s thoughts on the matter.

I’m not going to go after the person who called me a bully. There’s no point. People who refuse to see what’s really going on don’t want to understand. I’m not going to let that stop me from defending a friend and let the bully know it’s not okay to lash out in a verbal tirade and belittle people just because they don’t agree with you. I just wonder who is going to help this defender of bullies when she’s on the other end of the bully’s wrath?

 

It Happened Again

Are you as tired of hearing stories of violence within the schools as I am? Today, I heard another one. A young girl is getting death threats from a schoolmate. Teachers refuse to believe this could be bullying. Then this young girl is pushed down a flight of stairs.

Now, I’m thinking that’s a first step to making good on a death threat. How about you? What would you do next?

The parents of this young girl are still trusting the school to deal with the problem. I would be calling the police. They’ll take their daughter out of the school for a few days while the teachers “deal” with the bullying problem they aren’t even ready to acknowledge as existing. The victim once again the one forced out of the environment, not the bully!

The school system is a closed system where I live. That means police will not darken the door of any school without an invite. Quite a change from the almost weekly drug searches that went on when I attended school. The scary thing about this is parents are just as closed out as the police. The principal will smile at you and ensure you that they’re doing everything they can but you have no way of knowing if they’re doing anything.

This young girl received a threat and then it was acted upon. CALL THE POLICE! If you want your daughter to be safe in her school, you will bypass the school authorities and force action with an outside body that’s able to get in when invited.

This young girl has already been assaulted. Why are we letting bullies get away with crimes by putting our children at the mercy of a system that has proved unable to deal with the problem of bullying?

 

What do You Know about School Governing Rules?

A teacher assaults a parent. You’d think there would be some discipline. Not really. The only reason we got any action is because I pressed charges with the RCMP. Without doing that, NOTHING would have happened. My daughter would have had to continue attending this school with a woman I can only describe as mentally unstable. As it is, there are students still in the classroom with this teacher.

Here’s what was explained to me by a nice government employee that helped design this insanity.

1. RCMP are not welcome in our schools unless invited. The school superintendent was very angry that I brought them into the situation.

2. NO CHILD UNDER 16 YEARS OF AGE can make a statement of abuse by a teacher and have it considered. I asked what if a child says they’re being molested. The reply “If they are under 16, it won’t be considered.” In our case, this teacher had abused several of her students including a handicapped child. Not one of those incidents was considered as evidence when considering this teacher’s future. The children were under 16.

3. Schools in Saskatchewan are self governing. Basically one back scratches the other here. A teacher’s performance reflects on the superintendent. He is both judge and jury in these cases while being connected to the entire situation. How can this person be the voice for both the accused and the victim? It is an extreme conflict of interest. And the public (parents) have little to no access to the process. Even counselors are part of this internal system. They don’t have to answer to anyone and there is no way to test their integrity. In fact, there is no way of knowing if this teacher ever saw a counselor and definitely little chance that she was assessed by a licensed psychologist. Scared yet?

Who will handle the situation? In our case, if the principal had been left in charge, she would have done the right thing and had this teacher removed. However, she was quickly pushed aside and forbidden to speak to us. The only person we trusted in the system was pushed out of our reach. Instead we were forced to deal with the superintendent, a man who didn’t care about the students or the abuse. His reputation was on the line if one of the teachers he supported was found to be incompetent. Again, a severe conflict of interest! Cutting the principal off from communicating with us was nasty and unfair. She was our liaison between the internal system while we looked in from the outside.

My daughter was labelled a bully in front of her class. The teacher reported her as a bully to the principal. I was not made aware of any of this until after the assault. Why not?

Was anything ever done about the psychological damage to my child? She didn’t sleep and this whole thing had her upset for weeks. But she had no voice within the school. Thankfully, the justice system gave her that voice and she was able not only to confront this teacher for her own healing but also on the behalf of her friends and classmates.

Parents, if you suspect bullying. CALL THE RCMP! Most acts of bullying are crimes! The school system is not designed to protect your children but the system, the teachers and the governing authorities. Find out if there are more victims than just your child. Ban together and report things to the RCMP. The entire school system is one big bully! Go to social media. Let the rest of us hear your story so we can ban together and shut this system down.

We were bullied by the teacher.

We were bullied with threats by the school superintendent.

The principal was bullied by those above her.

If they could have, the school governing body would have bullied the RCMP. They did threaten that the RCMP wouldn’t help us. Thank goodness they were wrong.

But this teacher is still out there. I know there are many good teachers who truly care about the children or do you? Why are you part of such a corrupt system?