And Now for Something Less Fun

A Safe Classroom

Today’s LA Times featured a heartbreaking story about a 14 year-old, learning diabled boy named Jeremiah Lasater who shot himself in the boys’ bathroom of his Acton high school on Monday.  He was 6′ 5, awkward, and nerdy, according to kids quoted in the article.  He’d been bullied for quite some time, though the school’s and district’s administration denied having any knowledge of it. “Even the classroom wasn’t always safe for the 6-foot-5 teen, who in middle school was poked and teased by some of his fellow special needs students, according to a former teacher.”

I read this story at 7 AM as I watched my almost 11 year-old sprawled on the living room rug blearily finishing up his math homework.  He’s tall for his age.  He’s awkward.  He’s nerdy.  Like most mothers, my heart made an instant connection between the dead child and mine–that terrible what-if, please, oh-no, that lurks in darkest chambers of every parent’s heart.

All day long I thought about that poor boy driven to shoot himself.  He didn’t shoot himself at home where, presumably, he felt safe. He shot himself in the place where he was most threatened.

Clearly, he was sending a drastic, horrific message in the only way he felt he had left to him, since equally clearly, his words hadn’t been effective, and no one took action to help him.

14.

Dead.

Cause of death: bullying.

Our school has been having problems with discipline for the past half-year.  Last year 5th graders were caught having a girl fight in the bathroom while the boys videotaped it on their cellphones.  A 2nd grader called his teacher an f-ing b (without the abbreviations).  There were fights in front of the school, one of which involved a knife.

All this was exacerbated by our principal, Mr. Clueless, who really, by the end of the year, didn’t care.  One parent told me her fifth grader would report problems to him only to have him stroll in the most leisurely  fashion to the area of concern in order that (in her words) it would all be done with by the time he got there.

Children who should have faced consequences for their actions didn’t.  The kid who called his teacher those charming words didn’t even get a suspension.

Overcoming the culture of inertia is very difficult.  No one wants to take on the mess.  At Acton, at our school. But Acton is much worse:

Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District Supt. Stan Halperin said educators interviewed students, staff and the boy’s parents after Monday’s suicide and found no history of bullying.

Nor were taunts ever witnessed by Vasquez school staff, Principal Rosemary Oppenheim said.

The teacher in the 2nd grade classroom next to me has been trying all year to get someone to help her with a child who’s a bully.  He threatens to kill people.  He chases students with pencils or notebooks with the express purpose of hitting them in the eye (he states his intentions openly).  It’s the rare morning when he hasn’t punched three kids before the 8:15 start bell rings.

His kinder teacher had the same complaints and tried to do something.  His 1st grade teacher was aware of the problems and tried a different set of tactics.  The former principal knew but didn’t do much.  The interim principal knew but was only with us for 6 weeks..  Now his present teacher is trying to inform the new principal.   Administrative inertia.  At least it’s not denial, as in Acton.

The child’s grandparents (the parents are in jail) and an ‘advocate’ they’ve hired do their best to stymie his transfer to a special school for emotional disturbance.  They want him where he is.  No one knows why.  Maybe they’re in denial.

Meanwhile, the other students are being terrorized on a daily basis.  What about their needs for safe classroom?

This is the rhythm of educational bureaucracies:   Don’t ask, don’t tell.  Nothing changes, everything will be forgotten.  So many teachers try to do something, but we don’t have power.

In the lunch room we do talk. Oh that one is one I’m afraid will come back and do a Columbine.  We share stories and try to figure out ways to work the system.  I think the only power we have now is the power of the 4th estate: we’ve got to get the word out. This is what’s happening inside the system.  This is where your tax billions are going.  Is anyone out there listening?

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