My 11 y.o. aspie is having problems at school. We have only been at this school for 2 years as we immigrated back to Scotland from the US to help with my husband's elderly parents. The first year was fairly good; the teacher was helpful and encouraged him. At the end of May last year, my son came home from the bus with a red face, crying and had bruises on his chest. My aspie normally reads books or plays with his pokemon cards at the bus and does not socialise a great deal with others and rarely speaks unless spoken to. A group of kids who are known bullies (and who caused previous disruptions) had him in a choke hold so he bit him. Then he was pulled off his seat and punched in the chest and the stomach. Another child was calling him "gay" and trying to grab his privates. We complained to the school and filed a police report. The bus driver backed up my child's story. The next school day the depute hm had my son confront the four boys in front of a classroom and recount the story. I find this humiliating and as I am not familiar with privacy laws do not know if my child's privacy rights were broken. Later in the day, according to my child, the depute told him he was causing problems in the school and that he was a "liar."
Being new to the area I did not know that this school had a problem with this sort of thing happening but after having talked to some parents, I am finding it shocking that it is common for the victims of bullies to be told that they are causing problems and forced to rescind their original comments.
I sent my son back to this school this year, hoping this was a one-off occurence and just assuming it was poor judgement in actions on the part of the deputy. Verbal assults and taunting continued on the bus, but my husband and I continued to try to help our child cope with verbal bullying. Meanwhile at an IEP meeting the h.m. commented that my son exaggerates (yes, all children exaggerate and my son does have a high IQ and can be quite imaginative-- this will be relevant later). Meanwhile, my son comes home and tells me some not so nice comments to him from the teachers. One teacher tells him he's lazy on a frequent basis. On another occasion, the 6 year classes were having a consolidated project in which they had to pick out a country to write their report. Of course, my son chose the United States. The other teacher (not his mainstream teacher) commented to my child, "I hope you don't find anything good about the US because all Americans are wasteful, rude and don't care about the rest of the world, etc. " He continued this rant saying that he (the teacher) knows all this because he "goes to Florida every other year for the last 30 years" so on and so forth. This was amoungst other rude and unsavoury remarks. My son is dual national- British and American but he really feels more American at this point because he lived there for 9 years so he truly felt hurt by the comments. On another occassion this same teacher, who likes to sing and tends to sing during class and other inappropriate times, was singing and asked my son if he liked his singing my son said "ok" and muttered "no." The teacher heard this and made him stay in from break for 5 minutes with his head on a table. Afterward the teacher said, "Get out of my country, you little American _____________"
I should have raised my concerns earlier in the year. This occured near christmas time and I let a lot of it slide. There have not been many more incidences besides general bullying on the bus. Two weeks ago, however, the bullying became very vulgar and intolerable so I called the school. There was a meeting set up to talk about this and some of the other things and the HM decided to comb through his IEP trying to chock all this up to his short-commings as an aspie. The only topics I expressed concerns for were the tones inferred by my son that he was lazy and not doing his best, secondly the bullying, and thirdly the anti-American comments. I prefaced all this by saying I understand how my son is sensitive and my desired outcome would be that his teachers would use their words more carefully as not to upset him. At this point my son vomits at school, has nightmares, is inflicting self injury, has meltdowns every day and avoids school and school work all together. He has never had a problem with school before and even the prior year had no problems. He has never been in trouble in school, unless you count getting in trouble for muttering that he didn't like the teacher's singing. He has sensory issues so no wonder!
So after clearing the air with the h.m., just letting her know the problems the bullying got worse on the bus and one day at the lunchroom. It is on his IEP that he is to have a lunchroom buddy as my son is slow at doing tasks will hold out until the end so he doesn't have to be in a queue and then time is up by the time he gets his tray. Anyway, he was made to sit by the one of the children who bullied him on the bus as there were no other places in the lunchroom. This was making fun of the way my son speaks and made a crude remark about my son being Native American (He's only 1/8 but his grandmother is 1/2. This is a result of a project in which they had to write a report and read it to the class regarding their geneology. I guess that is supposed to promote tolerence but that fell flat!) I called the school not because I was upset at the comment. I mean, really, who cares? I called the school because I asked my son who his lunchroom buddy was this week and he said. Oh, she left school after Christmas. So my child has not had a provision placed on his IEP fulfilled for the past 5 months. I simply told the headmaster, to please let him have a lunch buddy so he would have a buffer between him and the ones causing problems and also so he can finish his lunch. Without his buddy and the head start that he was given before, he often is forced to throw away his lunch and go hungry for the rest of the day because they will not permit him to finish!
The next day I come to pick my son up at school (no more bus for us) and he comes out sobbing, unable to catch his breath. He told me that the headmaster came to get him right after the school bell and talked with him for what I estimate to be an hour and 15 min to an hour and a half about the "lunchroom" incident. I told the hm it was no big deal-I just wanted him to have a lunch buddy as per his IE flippin' P! They had 2 teachers, 4 kids and the head and the deputy all this meeting (An 8:1 ratio!) My son felt very intimidated, especially being asperger's and hating attention. They asked him where he was sitting; grilled him over minute details. Of course the other four boys were saying opposite. Back and fourth for over an hour till they reduced him to tears. He also claims that the h.m. shouted at him and said he was lying and said get out of here until you can tell the truth. My son has maintained he was telling the truth on all occasions. After a year since it first started happening he has not changed a single detail in any of the things he has told me. I have sat him down and told him how serious this all is and he knows lying is wrong. I feel very inclined to believe my son at this point; especially after having talked to other parents at the school.
I have asked these parents why they don't complain and they tell me they are afraid they will make their children's life a misery and that because it is a church school they're afraid it will carry over to church. Luckly, I am of a different faith, so I don't have to see these people at church but I do feel for the rest of the families that have been affected.
Anyway new school tomorrow! I will be taking this further and have had a rough idea of what steps I need to take to make a formal complaint. Any suggestions? Are these teachers not accountable for anything they say to a child without witnesses. How can they call my son and others "liars" and cover up their tracks by saying it didn't happen. They told me the initial bus incident was a lie! My son came home with bruises on his chest and the bus driver backed up my son's story and they still want to call him a liar???? What do I do? I know another mother coming against obstacles trying to confront these same issues with the education board. I hope that hopefully another complaint will open their eyes! I have some other rants about this school but it so atrocious it seems unbelievable.
