Family Sues Public School System Over [Cyber]Bullying
Here is an interesting story. A boy in Arkansas who has been perpetually bullied at school is now suing the school system for refusing to defuse the situation. While the bullying wasn’t entirely cyberbullying, it did play a part in the overall hostility and humiliation.
The story doesn’t say whether or not the offender’s parents knew of the situation, but clearly this is a case of parents not doing their jobs. If you child is a bully – you need to know and you need to stop it. Every parent should be utilizing parental control and monitoring software program like PC Pandora to know if their child is a victim, or perhaps a bully!
And don’t even get me started on the disgusting actions of the school itself…
If parents can’t do their jobs and school are either prohibited from or refuse to get involved and help stop this problem – what type of society will we turn into?
Parents of a former Fayetteville High School student sued the Fayetteville school district Wednesday, alleging it did not respond appropriately when their son was repeatedly bullied by classmates.
The 33-page federal lawsuit filed by Curt and Penney Wolfe also names Fayetteville High School Assistant Principal Byron Zeagler as a defendant.
The Wolfes claim in the suit that their son, William “Billy” Wolfe, has been harassed, picked on, bullied and assaulted on numerous occasions. They allege the school did not take appropriate steps to stop this abuse or report it to authorities.
The lawsuit also claims that Billy Wolfe’s civil rights have been violated because he was subjected to sexual harassment. Students teased him about being gay and called him derogatory slang words related to being gay. The Wolfes have said in earlier interviews that he is not gay.
The school does not tolerate sexual harassment of girls by boys and should not allow same-sex sexual harassment, the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit alleges that he has been subjected to cyberbullying on Facebook, an Internet social networking site, and that several students have been involved.
The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages, but their attorney said that money is not the motivation behind the lawsuit.
“They want to assure that no other child has to go through this,” said Westbrook Doss, a Fayetteville attorney representing the Wolfes.
Billy Wolfe has dropped out of Fayetteville High School and is currently studying for his GED.
“He’s doing quite well in his studies but not emotionally,” Doss said.
Fayetteville Superintendent Bobby New said he had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on it until after reviewing it with the district’s attorney, Rudy Moore.
“It’s obvious we don’t know anything about the lawsuit, and we wouldn’t pretend to make a reasonable comment until we see it, ” said New.
National news already
Billy Wolfe, 16, made national news earlier this year after his parents filed a lawsuit in Washington County Circuit Court on March 6 against a student he accused of bullying and assaulting him. A second student was added to the lawsuit on June 30. That case is still pending.Local news reports of this lawsuit accusing classmates of bullying and cyberbullying prompted national attention. Billy and Penney Wolfe and Doss appeared on several national television programs after a column by Dave Berry was published on the front page of The New York Times criticizing the way the school handled the situation.
Troubling claims
The lawsuit details a number of alleged incidents that happened to Billy Wolfe while he attended McNair Elementary School, Woodland Junior High School and Fayetteville High School. Doss said that Billy Wolfe has been physically attacked a total of five times, and the only incident where the perpetrators were punished happened in Fayetteville’s Gulley Park outside the jurisdiction of the school.“Two of the more troubling issues are that Fayetteville schools has never complied with reporting the assaults, as required by state law, and the actions of Zeagler in obstructing governmental operations and in hindering apprehension or prosecution of the perpetrators.”
Zeagler served as vice principal at Woodland when several of the incidents allegedly happened. He is accused of casting Billy Wolfe in a bad light when talking to law enforcement officials, failing to report alleged bullying of Billy Wolfe and general insensitivity to his situation. Zeagler is accused of telling Penney Wolfe that her son “got what he deserved” after he was punched in shop class by another student in May 2006.
December 15th, 2008 at 9:00 PM
its really just too bad stuff like this happens growing up is a hard thing
May 21st, 2009 at 5:34 PM
I am having a very similiar incident, 2 x now my son has been physically assualted by the same child, he has endured moths and months of being called a retard( he is a special education student) This has all been reported to the school system multiple times. Today when it happened again my son fought back, and guess what he was charged with a Class C misdemeanor for fighting. Never in the past even though he left my son with a black eye did the school system do anything ( my son did not fight back the two previous times)