Thursday, October 14, 2010

Halifax school officials with dents in their heads

CBC:
The parents of an eight-year-old Halifax boy who say he has been relentlessly bullied want him to be transferred to another school, but officials say that isn't necessary.
Connor Eisenhauer, a Grade 3 student at Rockingstone Heights School in Spryfield, has been the victim of bullies at least twice a week, his parents say.
Once, on the walk home from school, another child "kicked me in the face and chipped my teeth," Connor said Tuesday. "It really hurt."
But officials at Connor's school say a transfer isn't the answer, his mother, Christina Eisenhauer, said Tuesday after meeting with vice-principal Trina Canavan.
For now, the school is going to allow Connor to leave five minutes early, Eisenhauer said. This will give him a head start so he can get home before bullies reach him.
But the early dismissal time doesn't satisfy Connor's mom.
"I'm just to the point where it's emotionally stressful for me" Eisenhauer said. " Like this morning, when I was up there talking to Ms. Canavan, I literally broke down crying, telling her, like, my son comes home in tears telling me he's scared to go to school.
"I've had enough of it, and I know he's had enough of it."
There have been meetings with the school principal, and even the police, but the bullying hasn't stopped.
If you were routinely assaulted at your workplace, there'd be hell to pay. Perhaps the term "bullied" is minimizing and detracts from what is actually occuring: the routine physical assault and abuse of child. 
Maybe then the criminally negligent morons they're calling school officials might suggest something more assertive that letting the kid go 5 minutes early like some sick version of "The Running Man".

9 comments:

Unknown said...

What in the world is Canada coming to when a kid gets kicked around, in any sense of the phrase, and no one - as in his peers or the appropriate authorities - comes to his or her defence?

What the fuck? Is there not a Tim Hortons within shouting distance and no one comes to the kid's aid?

MgS said...

Welcome to the Canada that the HarperCon$ want to forge.

Cathie from Canada said...

School officials have to Maintain Their Authoritah!
After all, where would our society be if mere parents could decide what school their child should attend, rather than the school system making this decision? And if the parents don't like it, why, they can just move. Who do they think is in charge, anyway?

Dave said...

And what is that school creating?

Do they care about education? Apparently not. Eventually that bullied kid will find reasons not to enter that environment... as soon as possible. I know people who joined the navy at age 15 and joined an apprenticeship program to escape, not the academic challenge, but the social horror of school. How do I know that? That was me!

And the bullies? They will find morning tables in Timmy's among their own kind. And they will bitch incessantly about people who don't look like them and rob them of the "good jobs". Then, if they expend the energy to actually, y'know, vote, they will vote for a fellow shallow-thinking fuck.

How do you think Harper got elected?

Cathie from Canada said...

The /snark tag at the end of my post didn't come through.
Dave, I can feel your pain -- my high school wasn't as bad for bullies as some, but bad enough. My kids both made it through high school without too many scars, but one of the happier days of my life was the day both my kids were finished with the school system and I didn't have to worry about them anymore.

Greg said...

A note from the comments.

Someone pointed out that the kid who is currently being bullied is a kid who has been bullying other kids for at least four years. His parents have been using the excuse that he has "ADD".

This may be a case where the administrators, confounded by the restrictions on their ability to discipline a bully, are letting other children take it in to their own hands.

You think it doesn't happen? 'cause, oh yes, it does happen.

At some point, however, they have to declare the bully frightened, the lesson learned, and clamp down on the retribution.

Trout said...

This reminds me of a true story when my daughter was being bullied in elementary school. She finally snapped and beat the shit out of not one but both the boys who were the bullies.

I got called to the principals office and before he could say a lot I launched on him with; How dare you call me away from my workplace where I ensure bullying/harrassment etc. are not tolerated not to mention fights so you can essentially confess you are unable to maintain any semblance of order around here?

Took the daughter to Dairy Queen or something and then pissed the rest of the day together ;)

Twenty odd years later I sometimes feel a pang of sympathy for those boys, not for the beats she put on them, they desrved that, for what it must have been like for them when everybody in the school knew they got their asses handed to them by a girl.

She's a pretty self confident young woman as it turns out ;)

impudent strumpet said...

At the very very very very very very very very least, they should make the bullies stay five minutes late.

Luna said...

My kid has been in that position. I pulled her out of school entirely.