Katie's Story - By Patty

Please note that not only is the story I've written true, it is dedicated to people and their families who are still struggling. I just want everyone to know, there is hope and you are not alone. I'm dedicating this site to the Bully Police USA (Brenda High-Founder and Executive Director) and Peer Abuse-Know More! (Elizabeth Bennett).

I decided to create a separate page for my daughter's story, that way you could get a better sense of what she and I have been through all these years. My daughter has been a victim of bullying and for the longest time, I didn't know what was going on until one day I got a call from her middle school saying that there had been an "accident". I get there only to find out that a boy who had been bullying my child (which I didn't know about at the time) had beat the crap out of my daughter, (turns out the boy ended up fracturing my daughter's wrist) and yet the school didn't bother to call the police! I had to call them. I was told by the principal of Julius West Middle School, that it wasn't her place, that it was the responsibility of the parent. I was beyond furious! I lit into the principal and told her that she failed to do her job in protecting my daughter and that I would be reporting the incident and that I would have her job. Apparently what I said didn't even phase her. I called the police, they showed up, and I filed a police report against the boy for aggravated assault. The result: the boy was suspended for one day and the day he came back to school, we had a mediation (what a joke). The Juvenile Services Mediator first asked the boy why he did it. He mumbled something. The mediator then asked the boy if he was sorry, he said he was. The mediator asked the boy if he would be willing to apologize to my daughter and I for what he did. The boy "apologized" in a sarcastic manner, he had a smirk on his face when he "apologized". I told the mediator that it wasn't good enough, that the apology was not accepted because there was no remorse behind and that I wanted to press criminal charges and that I wanted it to go to court. Nothing came of it. The boy got away with it. The bullying continued when the same boy ended up going to the same high school that my daughter is attending now. The bad thing about this whole thing, its in my daughter's records, written by the program coordinator of Emotional Disabilities Cluster of the Special Ed program that my daughter is in at school, "What happened at JW stays at JW". The school KNEW that this kid had a tendency for violence against my daughter and yet they did nothing to protect my daughter when this kid did what he did to her a week before school ended this year (2007). My daughter's father and I didn't get a call about it until almost an hour and a half after the fact. We both have physical documentation of that. Ever since then, my daughter has been fighting back to protect herself. We went to court against this kid but when we got to the courthouse, we found out that a teacher, the program coordinator and the assistant administrator of students was there to testify on behalf of the boy who sexually assaulted my daughter! Can you believe that?! This kid commits a crime against my daughter and the school backs HIM up instead of my daughter!! My daughter felt so scared and so intimidated, that she told the Assistant State's Attorney, "I can't do this" and she was crying the whole time.

We had an IEP meeting today (November 5th). At first they were talking about transferring my daughter out of the school, my daughter's father and I objected to that - my reasoning - if we allowed them to do that, that would mean that they won. My daughter has already told me she isn't going to let them chase her out of the school, because she actually does have friends there - true friends.
At the IEP, everyone was discussing putting my daughter on the "certificate" program. Yeah, thats just their way of saying "lets just get rid of this problem as quickly as possible". My daughter's father and I objected to that. Then we began discussing changing her classification because she isn't emotionally disabled, she just gets emotional when she gets really pissed off, cornered or pushed over her limit. She is classified correctly now as Learning Disabled Specific (it only took 6 years of trying to get her out of the stupid emotional disabilities cluster of the special ed program to finally succeed).

Well, her classes were changed from the ED Cluster to the LD Resource Program (modified less restrictive) on November 13, 2007. We'll see how she does. Thats all to report for now. It looks like the school, as far as my daughter is concerned, isn't making trouble for her. As for me, the principal is still acting like someone with a stick up his you know where because according to him "Ms. Toler, you are the reason that my staff gets stressed out every time you come to the school for a meeting or if something you claim happened and you think we aren't doing our job", so he thinks that gives him the right to use "selective enforcement" when it comes to the Maryland Annotated Codes as well as the county codes. Thing is, he doesn't realize, that I know them just as well as he does and the fact that he thinks I'm stupid and that I'm a stress factor, only means that he's finally realizing, if he and his school want a war with regards to the bullying issue and equal rights and right to safe education, then hey, I say bring it on, because I have the law on my side.

So far there hasn't been any problems with regards to bullying of my daughter. She handles any outbreaks on her own. And yet, the stupid principal, to this day, is still treating me like I'm a troublemaker - insisting that I go NO WHERE without a security escort. Thats all I have to report for now.

Update: My daughter was jumped by 3 girls at her school and she was left with bruises on both of her shoulders and arms. When she reported the incident to the teachers, they told her "We can't do anything about it because we didn't see it". It wasn't until another student who saw what happened, go to the principal and report the attack, that those 3 girls were suspended. It just goes to show how "one-way" or "blind" the school system and staff really are.

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