Tuesday

Mixed Emotions

Today I am filled with mixed emotions.
My book is finally available for purchase online. The webpage isn't complete yet. The cover art isn't showing up and either are the page excerpts from my book, but they're working on it. I'm sure it will look superb by this evening. I'm not worried.
So, anyway...I should be excited about that...and I am. I'm very excited. But my joy is being overpowered by my anger at my son's elementary school's principal.
See, my son came home on Friday with a large goose egg on the back of his head. Thanks to this kid that rides his bus. My son claimed that this kid spit on him, put him in a headlock and then pushed him so his head hit the window. My son told me he did nothing to provoke the kid. Well, that's not true. My son said that the seat was crowded and because of that he accidentally hit the kid in the stomach when the bus went over a bump. He claims to have immediately appologized afterwards.
Now, I'm not stupid. I remember being a kid. I was positive that this rendition of the story wasn't entirely accurate. I know that my son has a tendency to get on people's nerves. He's smart. Quite a bit smarter than most of his classmates and he likes to let them know it, usually by correctting them. He's sarcastic as well. A result from being a product of me and my husband. Because of this, I was pretty sure that my son did something to provoke this kid. My son is also a good foot shorter than every other boy in his grade. He is in 3rd grade but he is the size of a kindergartener and kids like to tease him about it. This particluar kid happens to be one of those kids who like to pick on my son's size. My son has come home on more than one occasion, crying because this kid was bullying him on the bus. I've called the school at least 3 times to complain about the bullying.
Taking all of this into consideration, I came to the conclusion that, I didnt care if my son DID provoked this kid by being annoyingly sarcastic, he had no right to spit on him and smack his head against the window.
So, I called the school. I was sure that they would help me. With all the school's talk of anti-bullying and what-not, I was sure they would be just as appaulled as I was. After all, my son is an exemplary student. He never gets into trouble. And they were appaulled. They told me they knew exactly the student to whom I was referring to. They would review the videotape from the bus and get to the bottom of this come Monday morning.
Monday I received a call from the principal. He was waiting for the videotape. In the meanwhile, he would interview both children and any witnesses he could find. Today I heard back from the principal. He told me that strangely enough, the videotape stops recording a few minutes before the fight started. Because of that, they have to rely on the statements of the children. They heard from my son, the bully, and the bully's friend. According to the bully and his friend, my son started the fight by spitting on the bully first. Yeah right! My son, who is the size of a kindergarten student, spit on a large 4th grader who is a known bully. I'm so sure. But since it's 2 against 1 they are taking the bully's side and guess what?!?
My son received in-school suspension!
  

1 comment:

  1. It's terribly sad that we can't put our children in protective bubbles and keep them from others harmful words and ways.

    ReplyDelete