Saturday, June 30, 2012

Another reason NOT to send your special needs child to school

Florida Teen Being Punished for Trying to Defend Mentally-Challenged Student From Bullies

Stormy Rich, a Florida honor student, is being punished for trying to protect a mentally-challenged student from bullies. The 18-year-old says that she had seen a girl getting bullied on the bus for months and had reported it to school officials to no avail....

When the bus driver and school officials both failed to act to prevent the bullying, Rich took matters into her own hands, threatening the bullies to stop. The middle school girls then went to the school and told on Rich, and she was kicked off the bus permanently. The school says that Rich displayed bullying behavior herself and that two wrongs don’t make a right.

The school also says that the mentally challenged girl never complained about being bullied, to which Rich said, “What kid that’s bullied goes and tells somebody? What kid? They want to have friends.”


If I was the mother of the special needs child, I would be livid. The school receives multiple reports of abuse and does nothing to protect the child. Even worse, the school gets rid of the only person who will.

I have a hard time understanding how could any administrator or bus driver be that ethically challenged.  The school is a sick system that puts defending the defenseless as equivalent as "bullying."  It is not like Stormy beat the kids up behind the school.  Actually, I wouldn't have problem with that. 

Why haven't the girls who tormented the handicapped child been suspended and banned from the bus?   

I'm sure Stormy Rich's parents are very proud of their daughter, as they should be.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is something I see over and over again, even in the workplace. The bullying is just fine, but the one who calls attention to it is savagely punished.

Henry Cate said...

It is a sad world when so many care more about the bullies than the victims.