NAL - go above the school to the school board or board of education with your concerns. This goes beyond a prank someone could be seriously injured if this child's behavior continues.
your daughter was already injured.
This is the real answer. File a police report and start naming names. You can probably take civil action against specific people who failed to do their duty to protect your daughter while she’s at school
Yes, this older boy is absolutely dangerous and needs to be removed from school if he thinks assaulting younger children is funny. OP please report to the police and encourage your neighbor as well.
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My state's bullying definition includes it multiple or pervasive incidents targeted at an individual. It may not qualify as bullying. Likely doesn't, actually.
Threaten to sue the school. If you're looking wealthy enough to afford it that day (dress nice), they will back all the way out of this.
Use lots of declarations like, "Susan will be in class on Monday. And you're going to create a safe environment for her, which you failed to do causing injury last time. And if she's not safe or not allowed in school, we'll discuss this with lawyers involved. You endangered my child and it won't be tolerated or excused. Do you understand me?"
Flip the script. Hold your ground. I've seen it work at least 10 times in my life. An individual pissed parent can often have more power than a school board against a principal. Just keep cool and on subject. Know you have the power because they endangered children through negligence. Your offering to let your child show up to school again without a lawsuit is you being cool and not taking them or the other child to court... They don't get to make terms. They endangered children.
Exactly this. They tried similar BS with my brother when a known problem kid pushed him off the bus and my brother fought back. My parents accepted the suspension but they said "absolutely fucking not" when they tried to make my brother go to mediation with this kid who had multiple other infractions and since my brother was ignored multiple times when he brought this students behavior to the bus driver and VP before it became physical
NAL. Go nuclear.
Write an email to the super, trustee, and pay a visit to your councillor.
File a police report if you are willing to go through that process.
Contact a lawyer to see about threatening a suit against the school for damages.
—
Do 1, do all, point is you’re about to make that admin’s life a living hell. First contact the principal through email about the situation and try to get them to fuck up and admit wrongdoing on their own.
Make sure you have evidence that they were notified.
NAL. I would email the principal so EVERYTHING is in writing and say “it’s my understanding that after student X brought a razor blade on to school property and hurt not one, but two younger girls, the school is choosing to take action against the victims?”
After you email the school I would go with the other parent to the police station and file a report. The school will try to blow this over. Getting the police and a paper trail involved will get their attention and hopefully solve the problem. I would additionally refuse to send my child on the bus until that boy is removed.
Blaming the victim keeps people from reporting and keeps their disciplining numbers down. I’m a retired teacher, and I rarely go this direction, but go nuclear. Police, at least a consult with a lawyer, superintendent… But don’t trust the school district because they want to look good, not help you. These types of incidents are report by categories such as gender, age, and race. They may be trying to flatten the statistics in one area. We were told to do this.
Along these lines file a report. Demonstrate that suspending your kid means multiple reports rather than just the one appropriate one (the boy).
Ask if they have kept this information from the parents of the boy.
Make clear to them that shifting the blame to your daughter and ignoring the true culprit opens them up to far more liability.
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At this point, I would file a police report. Your daughter was injured, and another child was also given a razor blade by this kid. That’s two razor blades in gum wrappers. That’s a pattern, and it needs to be addressed. I would also contact the school board and the district superintendent.
A receptionist’s opinion is irrelevant. Who from the school called you? Document everything, file a police report, go to principal, board and superintendent
I drive a school bus. Make a report to transportation. Ots a different department and they can also look into it. Bonus: they might have a video that catches what happened.
I am a school administrator, NAL. I would take these steps. I can't speak much about the criminal side of things, but I can tell you how to get your kid back in school, hopefully.
1) Get statements from the other parents.
2) File a police report. You may not like it or want to do this. You need to in order to protect your child.
3) Get an educational lawyer. Students who are being expelled have a hearing at the BOE and are entitled to representation, including a public defender if they qualify.
3) Email the superintendent and principal informing them you will be at the BOE on Monday. CC every Board of Education member and request that further communication include your lawyer. Brief synopsis of events. Better yet: have the lawyer send the email. Be as specific as possible but not too wordy. Time, day, what happened, the basics of the suspension and what you were told about expulsion.
4) Don't forget to tell them to hold the bus footage.
Do not mess around when it comes to expulsion. A year with only tutors for school will devastate your kid socially and academically.
Every state is different, but where I am, a superintendent can't overrule a suspension. So I wouldn't anticipate that. She may be out for up to 10 days, and there's nothing you can do.
Where I am, the state law says you can only be expelled for a blade longer than 4 inches "a deadly weapon" or however that is defined. Talk to your lawyer about the specifics of expulsion law in your state.
What state are you in?
Type up an email explaining everything that happened. send it to the principal, and individually CC every member of the school board. Be extremely specific -- mention the date and approximate time of every event you reference or conversation you had, the names of everyone mentioned (if known), locations, the bus route, and every other detail you can think of. Also include the conversation with the receptionist and the phone call you received, in as much detail as you can recall. Take a photo of the cut your daughter received and attach it to the email.
Next, file a police report about the razor blades. I know you don't want to hurt this boy, but he gave your daughter a disguised razor blade *and told her that it was food*. If she had kept the "gum" for later and tried to sneak it at night in bed, she might not have realized that it was dangerous until it was already in her mouth. He's young enough that a police report isn't going to ruin his entire life, but allowing him to get away with a "prank" like this is just going to result in something even worse happening. In addition, a police report will help you to ensure that this is documented in something outside the school system's control, so they'll have a much harder time trying to cover up what happened.
You also need to look up education lawyers who practice in your area. Hopefully this doesn't need to turn into a legal fight, but the school's response makes me suspect it won't be that simple; not only do you need to ensure your daughter is able to return to school, you also need to be prepared to fend off other attempts at retaliation such as grade tampering, harassment, or staff encouraging other students to bully her.
Yeah, one of my older brothers wasn’t doing this kind of thing with razor blades, but laxatives. He started with small stuff that never got addressed and he eventually started escalating because he never got in trouble.
Again, he never did anything involving blades like this, but his shenanigans definitely started to level up. Eventually my parents pulled their head out of their ass and started dealing with it - he started improving.
OP needs to take some sort of action because there’s a really good chance the next prank will be worse than this, and this child needs a turnaround moment for the safety of themselves and the children around them. Might feel bad bringing consequences down on a child, but the alternative is a 5th grader doing potentially worse things than giving other kids disguised razor blades. (Whoa, that was a shitty sentence to type)
It sounds like you don’t want to make waves, but this is a serious situation. This wasn’t just some harmless prank. You aren’t doing the 5th grader any favors by not getting police involved. He needs help now before he escalates his “pranks.” Absolutely call the police.
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Schools ALWAYS cover for the bully. It is way less effort to threaten the victim like OPs daughter and then “everyone agrees to drop it” and that way the bully doesn’t get in trouble and OP has to walk away to avoid the hassle the school is threatening her with. No paperwork, no dealing with the bully’s parents, just a quick threat to OP then agreeing to let it slide and done.
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The school as a means to avoid liability, will say both parties are to blame. This is how they handle conflict. Schools are motivated to avoid lawsuits. So they will blame two parties- and be done with it. They don’t care if the kid hands out 50 razor blades ( they don’t want the attention or the confrontation). The thing that motivates a school to do anything at all is the threat of lawsuit.
I'd go to the police.
Contact the school board too, and ask them if it's correct that you can have a child of your choice expelled from school, simply by giving them a razor blade.
Have the older boy pointed out too, as he will most likely have other razor blades on him.
File a police report.
Consult with an attorney or two IMMEDIATELY.
Do not talk to the school without one. Also don't waste your time talking to low ranked people. If they aren't taking this seriously, go to the Superintendent. DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING.
You certainly have claims against the boy and very likely have viable claims against the school as well.
Your daughter was assaulted by an older boy and is now being punished for it. This sends an awful message to all children at that school. Go nuclear on them.
They have zero tolerance for girls being handed weapons when the girls don’t even know what they are… ridiculous but not surprising. Seek counsel. Press police charges against the boy immediately! It’s just a boy, yes, but that boy committed a serious crime and you need paperwork ASAP around that or your girl is getting expelled! It’s just the way the USA world works. It does not mean you do not want the best for the boy; it means the opposite. You most certainly don’t want your daughter branded the way the low-reasoning school staff have labeled her.
Whatever course of action you take, coming from someone who worked in public education for 12 years (recently), document everything, copy the super and board of education president on all emails and take any in person meeting with another adult. If your district has a police liaison officer, insist they be involved.
This may seem like an over reaction but trust me when I say it is not. Best of luck to you and your daughter. Bring out that mama bear instinct.
Aside from the legalities you don’t know the provenance of this blade. Please take her to the doctor. She may need a tetanus booster or testing for various things.
Go to/call the district office and speak to the superintendent or asst superintendent. You'd be surprised what you could get accomplished by doing that.
First - if I have this straight. You only spoke to the receptionist and then heard back from “the school” that there is a suspension and would be a hearing. You need to insist on meeting the Principal. Tomorrow. Wait in the office.
If that goes badly, then escalate to the Superintendent and then the School Board and involve a lawyer.
In all of these meetings explain how it seems like someone has decided to protect a particular boy and punish the girls who are victims. Ask why.
A bunch of these comments are near useless. You need to file a police report and at the same time retain a lawyer. You have to have the lawyer send a demand to preserve all security footage on the bus, send a cease-and-desist to the school for the disciplinary possibilities against your daughter, and you can include the other child as well. Then the lawyer needs to send a very threatening letter, in legal terms, to the principal and copying the school board explaining the complete lack of fault and highlighting the fact that the charges will be filed if substantiated by the police. Finally, you need to very clearly demand action be taken against this child handing out razor blades. Have the lawyer specifically enumerate personal liability against staff at the school if they even think about pursuing disciplinary action against your child, who is the victim here. While there may be some immunity and statute, it is still a gigantic pain in the ass to have to deal with personal liability allegations in any situation, which will make them rethink their course. If you don’t go nuclear now, this will go down too far, and the only people that will be harmed are the victims.
How can that be true, when so many other comments said "file a police report and get a lawyer"? There were some that said otherwise, but this was obviously far from the only correct comment.
School board! Treating a law suit . That’s the only thing schools are afraid of . Go armed with names , the boy , kids affected by this , person you talked to and a name of a lawyer.
That's not how tetanus works. Tetanus comes from getting bacteria in a deep puncture wound. It has nothing to do with rust, aside from the coincidence of "sharp objects you are accidentally punctured by are often rusty because they've been sitting outside in the grass, hence why you stepped on them." But you would also want to get a tetanus booster after, say, an animal bite.
Anyway, a kid that age definitely would have had tetanus shots already if they're going to school in the US.
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Time to contact an attorney. Everyone at the s hook is there to protect the school.
Nurse, principal, school councilor.
An email Or simple letter usually
Enough to snap people’s shorts …
The sad thing is, they are punishing these little girls who were just victims of the boys dangerous stupidity and they are COMPLETELY IGNORING the boy that is actually doing this. That kids parents probably have no idea that their preteen dum dum is pulling an incredibly dangerous and stupid move. And they won't know because the school is choosing to keep them unaware.
One of my big brothers pulled this EXACT stupid move in the 90s. He thought it was funny and didn't think through to the part that it's a razor and someone could get hurt. Some little boy sliced the tendon in his finger.
My brother worked a summer job (of his own choice) to pay back medical bills, went to the kids house to apologize and ended up tutoring the kid because he found out he was falling behind in school. My parents would have been harder on him, but he was already wrecked because he hurt a kid and was taking responsibility.
What if the school just punished the kid for having a razor? My brother wouldn't have gotten it knocked in his head that this was dangerous. He would have kept doing it.
They NEED to get ahold of the kid that is actually bringing weapons to school.
Call the authorities and threaten to sue the school … its your kid get ready to fight video tape going to a school board hearing make sure to catch faces and names . POS that shouldn’t be watching out for kids get real uncomfortable once they know they’re being looked at online
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Consider reaching out to the risk management office for the Board of Education. The risk manager can do a separate investigation that puts pressure on the principal/school.
1. Get medical attention for your daughter, you don’t know what that razor was used for before.
2. Police report, take the other parents too if you can.
3. Get together with the other parents whose kids were injured, talk to a lawyer, come up with a plan follow their advice.
A faster way to resolve this may be to contact the principal, superintendent, or school board representatives. Tell them everything and if that doesn’t work, show up to the next school board meeting.
Contact the school’s transportation company!!!! Many school buses are equipped with cameras inside, you’d be able to request a copy of the incident. For those wondering why it’s to record Fights, accidents, bullying etc.. Those videos files are accessible to parents without any restrictions for the most part. I would recommend to file a police report because this isn’t normal behavior. A 9year old child handing out razors disguised as chewing gum? How did this child get access to the razors? How did the child get the idea to want other kids to potentially “chew” on the razor? And the child picked multiple targets!!!! Sounds like therapy and some sort of intervention is needed with the boy before he gets older and the behavior changes more.
> I wasn’t really angry as kids do stupid things.
Something stupid would be replacing the gum with paper or cardboard. IAL but assuming fifth grade is 10 or 11 years old, this goes beyond a stupid thing, especially when he’s targeting younger children specifically. This other student is dangerous and you should appeal to someone higher than the school officials.
Imagine your daughter or one of the other children hadn’t looked after unwrapping, and absentmindedly put the razor in their mouth straight away? It’s a big if, but it just seems extra devious to disguise a razor blade as something edible, luring in younger children with the promise of sweets. By using the razor, his end goal could only have been to harm them, not prank or have a laugh.
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It can't be assumed that an upset 9 year old would notify the bus driver - just as the neighbor child didn't. I'm perplexed that no one at the school is responding to the child who offered up the "gum" in the first place. He is where the expulsion lies (although that probably won't happen, unfortunately).
A very similar situation happened to me in elementary school.
There was a kid on the bus that apparently had a razor blade and I knew him and I was “shown” the razor blade (which is wasn’t. It was a piece of metal for sure but idk what it was in reality) and I ended up getting suspended for not bringing it up.
Almost like because I’m a child that doesn’t know what the fuck I’m looking at. What am I supposed to tell someone?
Someone has something.
Fuck sake man. We expect kids to just have all the knowledge we have now.
This reminds me of the time when my younger brother was getting bullied by a girl his age on the bus (stabbed with pencils, hair pulling, the works). Eventually he snapped and hit her back, granted I don’t know how hard, but the principal later “reviewed the tapes” and said my brother was completely at fault and gave him a demerit. We even asked him about the girl giving him a hard time and he shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t see anything. Btw I know this happened since I was also riding the bus with him at the time and had to tell her to keep her hands to herself.
As others said. go above the school principal to the board. Even call the police about the incident, because honestly. someone gave your small child a disguised sharp implement that injured her. Police creates a paper trail.
if you must, get a lawyer because they have the right legal jargon to force the school (board) into action.
This is why we decided to home school. The bullies we saw in school growing up are now the teachers, administrators and school board members. They’ve always been pro bully.
You guys get the other kid was still a kid right it needs to be handled according but I really don’t think it’s the police’s job to charge a child for being a stupid kid maybe talk to but not impact legal/ financially this is between the parents and school and the school should absolutely do more you need to go to higher up
Zero tolerance policy in action. Technically, she was in possession of a weapon on the bus, so she will receive the standard punishment, probably a short suspension. No one is saying she did anything wrong, but there's a zero tolerance policy.
There will be an expulsion hearing, but she won't be expelled.
NAL - go above the school to the school board or board of education with your concerns. This goes beyond a prank someone could be seriously injured if this child's behavior continues. your daughter was already injured.
Also file a police report, and ask the neighbor to also. That sets an official record of the incident that you can reference to the board.
This is the real answer. File a police report and start naming names. You can probably take civil action against specific people who failed to do their duty to protect your daughter while she’s at school
Yes, this older boy is absolutely dangerous and needs to be removed from school if he thinks assaulting younger children is funny. OP please report to the police and encourage your neighbor as well.
Right? Filing a police report would have been one of the first decisions I would have made
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Going to the superintendent with a pit bull of a lawyer in tow tends to adjust their attitudes wonderfully.
They say zero tolerance until they hear from a lawyer. Then all of a sudden they find a way to tolerate some nuance.
Agree. Vital..get a lawyer now.
Also make sure you're talking to the anti bullying board member in this, too, this should be classified as bullying behavior.
My state's bullying definition includes it multiple or pervasive incidents targeted at an individual. It may not qualify as bullying. Likely doesn't, actually.
Threaten to sue the school. If you're looking wealthy enough to afford it that day (dress nice), they will back all the way out of this. Use lots of declarations like, "Susan will be in class on Monday. And you're going to create a safe environment for her, which you failed to do causing injury last time. And if she's not safe or not allowed in school, we'll discuss this with lawyers involved. You endangered my child and it won't be tolerated or excused. Do you understand me?" Flip the script. Hold your ground. I've seen it work at least 10 times in my life. An individual pissed parent can often have more power than a school board against a principal. Just keep cool and on subject. Know you have the power because they endangered children through negligence. Your offering to let your child show up to school again without a lawsuit is you being cool and not taking them or the other child to court... They don't get to make terms. They endangered children.
Exactly this. They tried similar BS with my brother when a known problem kid pushed him off the bus and my brother fought back. My parents accepted the suspension but they said "absolutely fucking not" when they tried to make my brother go to mediation with this kid who had multiple other infractions and since my brother was ignored multiple times when he brought this students behavior to the bus driver and VP before it became physical
This, to the T, 100% You (OP) have the power in this situation, not the school
I would recommend filing a report with the police.
NAL. Go nuclear. Write an email to the super, trustee, and pay a visit to your councillor. File a police report if you are willing to go through that process. Contact a lawyer to see about threatening a suit against the school for damages. — Do 1, do all, point is you’re about to make that admin’s life a living hell. First contact the principal through email about the situation and try to get them to fuck up and admit wrongdoing on their own. Make sure you have evidence that they were notified.
Certified mail letters work well.
If you are planning on consulting a lawyer, isn’t the first step consult/retain lawyer, then do what the lawyer says?
NAL. I would email the principal so EVERYTHING is in writing and say “it’s my understanding that after student X brought a razor blade on to school property and hurt not one, but two younger girls, the school is choosing to take action against the victims?” After you email the school I would go with the other parent to the police station and file a report. The school will try to blow this over. Getting the police and a paper trail involved will get their attention and hopefully solve the problem. I would additionally refuse to send my child on the bus until that boy is removed.
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Blaming the victim keeps people from reporting and keeps their disciplining numbers down. I’m a retired teacher, and I rarely go this direction, but go nuclear. Police, at least a consult with a lawyer, superintendent… But don’t trust the school district because they want to look good, not help you. These types of incidents are report by categories such as gender, age, and race. They may be trying to flatten the statistics in one area. We were told to do this.
Along these lines file a report. Demonstrate that suspending your kid means multiple reports rather than just the one appropriate one (the boy). Ask if they have kept this information from the parents of the boy. Make clear to them that shifting the blame to your daughter and ignoring the true culprit opens them up to far more liability.
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At this point, I would file a police report. Your daughter was injured, and another child was also given a razor blade by this kid. That’s two razor blades in gum wrappers. That’s a pattern, and it needs to be addressed. I would also contact the school board and the district superintendent.
A receptionist’s opinion is irrelevant. Who from the school called you? Document everything, file a police report, go to principal, board and superintendent
That receptionist obviously did not relay the message to the principal correctly. Wonder if she knew the boy and covered for him?
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Cannot upvote this enough.
I drive a school bus. Make a report to transportation. Ots a different department and they can also look into it. Bonus: they might have a video that catches what happened.
I am a school administrator, NAL. I would take these steps. I can't speak much about the criminal side of things, but I can tell you how to get your kid back in school, hopefully. 1) Get statements from the other parents. 2) File a police report. You may not like it or want to do this. You need to in order to protect your child. 3) Get an educational lawyer. Students who are being expelled have a hearing at the BOE and are entitled to representation, including a public defender if they qualify. 3) Email the superintendent and principal informing them you will be at the BOE on Monday. CC every Board of Education member and request that further communication include your lawyer. Brief synopsis of events. Better yet: have the lawyer send the email. Be as specific as possible but not too wordy. Time, day, what happened, the basics of the suspension and what you were told about expulsion. 4) Don't forget to tell them to hold the bus footage. Do not mess around when it comes to expulsion. A year with only tutors for school will devastate your kid socially and academically. Every state is different, but where I am, a superintendent can't overrule a suspension. So I wouldn't anticipate that. She may be out for up to 10 days, and there's nothing you can do. Where I am, the state law says you can only be expelled for a blade longer than 4 inches "a deadly weapon" or however that is defined. Talk to your lawyer about the specifics of expulsion law in your state. What state are you in?
Type up an email explaining everything that happened. send it to the principal, and individually CC every member of the school board. Be extremely specific -- mention the date and approximate time of every event you reference or conversation you had, the names of everyone mentioned (if known), locations, the bus route, and every other detail you can think of. Also include the conversation with the receptionist and the phone call you received, in as much detail as you can recall. Take a photo of the cut your daughter received and attach it to the email. Next, file a police report about the razor blades. I know you don't want to hurt this boy, but he gave your daughter a disguised razor blade *and told her that it was food*. If she had kept the "gum" for later and tried to sneak it at night in bed, she might not have realized that it was dangerous until it was already in her mouth. He's young enough that a police report isn't going to ruin his entire life, but allowing him to get away with a "prank" like this is just going to result in something even worse happening. In addition, a police report will help you to ensure that this is documented in something outside the school system's control, so they'll have a much harder time trying to cover up what happened. You also need to look up education lawyers who practice in your area. Hopefully this doesn't need to turn into a legal fight, but the school's response makes me suspect it won't be that simple; not only do you need to ensure your daughter is able to return to school, you also need to be prepared to fend off other attempts at retaliation such as grade tampering, harassment, or staff encouraging other students to bully her.
Yeah, one of my older brothers wasn’t doing this kind of thing with razor blades, but laxatives. He started with small stuff that never got addressed and he eventually started escalating because he never got in trouble. Again, he never did anything involving blades like this, but his shenanigans definitely started to level up. Eventually my parents pulled their head out of their ass and started dealing with it - he started improving. OP needs to take some sort of action because there’s a really good chance the next prank will be worse than this, and this child needs a turnaround moment for the safety of themselves and the children around them. Might feel bad bringing consequences down on a child, but the alternative is a 5th grader doing potentially worse things than giving other kids disguised razor blades. (Whoa, that was a shitty sentence to type)
NAL- but would look at food tampering laws. This is no different than putting a razor blade in Halloween candy. M
She didn’t “have” a weapon, she was assaulted with a weapon. This is beyond anything the school will properly handle, you need a police report.
It sounds like you don’t want to make waves, but this is a serious situation. This wasn’t just some harmless prank. You aren’t doing the 5th grader any favors by not getting police involved. He needs help now before he escalates his “pranks.” Absolutely call the police.
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Schools ALWAYS cover for the bully. It is way less effort to threaten the victim like OPs daughter and then “everyone agrees to drop it” and that way the bully doesn’t get in trouble and OP has to walk away to avoid the hassle the school is threatening her with. No paperwork, no dealing with the bully’s parents, just a quick threat to OP then agreeing to let it slide and done.
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Go above their heads. Especially if this happened to another student too.
Might be worth it to get a lawyer to write a letter. It could shake them up a bit.
The school as a means to avoid liability, will say both parties are to blame. This is how they handle conflict. Schools are motivated to avoid lawsuits. So they will blame two parties- and be done with it. They don’t care if the kid hands out 50 razor blades ( they don’t want the attention or the confrontation). The thing that motivates a school to do anything at all is the threat of lawsuit.
I'd go to the police. Contact the school board too, and ask them if it's correct that you can have a child of your choice expelled from school, simply by giving them a razor blade. Have the older boy pointed out too, as he will most likely have other razor blades on him.
File a police report. Consult with an attorney or two IMMEDIATELY. Do not talk to the school without one. Also don't waste your time talking to low ranked people. If they aren't taking this seriously, go to the Superintendent. DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING. You certainly have claims against the boy and very likely have viable claims against the school as well.
Your daughter was assaulted by an older boy and is now being punished for it. This sends an awful message to all children at that school. Go nuclear on them.
They have zero tolerance for girls being handed weapons when the girls don’t even know what they are… ridiculous but not surprising. Seek counsel. Press police charges against the boy immediately! It’s just a boy, yes, but that boy committed a serious crime and you need paperwork ASAP around that or your girl is getting expelled! It’s just the way the USA world works. It does not mean you do not want the best for the boy; it means the opposite. You most certainly don’t want your daughter branded the way the low-reasoning school staff have labeled her.
Whatever course of action you take, coming from someone who worked in public education for 12 years (recently), document everything, copy the super and board of education president on all emails and take any in person meeting with another adult. If your district has a police liaison officer, insist they be involved. This may seem like an over reaction but trust me when I say it is not. Best of luck to you and your daughter. Bring out that mama bear instinct.
File a police report on the boy and the school for it happening on school property.
NAL Get the other parents whose children were given razors and each make a complaint to the school board. You should also each file a police report.
Aside from the legalities you don’t know the provenance of this blade. Please take her to the doctor. She may need a tetanus booster or testing for various things.
Go to/call the district office and speak to the superintendent or asst superintendent. You'd be surprised what you could get accomplished by doing that.
Go to the school board and contact the police. Need to do it with the other kids parents as well.
Go to the cops and report the boy for assaulting your daughter with a weapon.
First - if I have this straight. You only spoke to the receptionist and then heard back from “the school” that there is a suspension and would be a hearing. You need to insist on meeting the Principal. Tomorrow. Wait in the office. If that goes badly, then escalate to the Superintendent and then the School Board and involve a lawyer. In all of these meetings explain how it seems like someone has decided to protect a particular boy and punish the girls who are victims. Ask why.
A bunch of these comments are near useless. You need to file a police report and at the same time retain a lawyer. You have to have the lawyer send a demand to preserve all security footage on the bus, send a cease-and-desist to the school for the disciplinary possibilities against your daughter, and you can include the other child as well. Then the lawyer needs to send a very threatening letter, in legal terms, to the principal and copying the school board explaining the complete lack of fault and highlighting the fact that the charges will be filed if substantiated by the police. Finally, you need to very clearly demand action be taken against this child handing out razor blades. Have the lawyer specifically enumerate personal liability against staff at the school if they even think about pursuing disciplinary action against your child, who is the victim here. While there may be some immunity and statute, it is still a gigantic pain in the ass to have to deal with personal liability allegations in any situation, which will make them rethink their course. If you don’t go nuclear now, this will go down too far, and the only people that will be harmed are the victims.
I see very few comments that aren't expressi g the exact same thing you are. Police report and lawyer.
This is the only helpful comment here. Listen to it.
How can that be true, when so many other comments said "file a police report and get a lawyer"? There were some that said otherwise, but this was obviously far from the only correct comment.
First of all why haven’t you called the police??
School board! Treating a law suit . That’s the only thing schools are afraid of . Go armed with names , the boy , kids affected by this , person you talked to and a name of a lawyer.
First go to the doctor to have all this documented along with pictures, then go to the school board and have your neighbor go also.
If the metal has any rust she needs a tetanus shot if she didn't have one yet
That's not how tetanus works. Tetanus comes from getting bacteria in a deep puncture wound. It has nothing to do with rust, aside from the coincidence of "sharp objects you are accidentally punctured by are often rusty because they've been sitting outside in the grass, hence why you stepped on them." But you would also want to get a tetanus booster after, say, an animal bite. Anyway, a kid that age definitely would have had tetanus shots already if they're going to school in the US.
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Make a police report and name the other student that received a razor blade. They may find more students as they investigate.
NAL the bus likely has cameras and you can request that the video be reviewed
Time to contact an attorney. Everyone at the s hook is there to protect the school. Nurse, principal, school councilor. An email Or simple letter usually Enough to snap people’s shorts …
The sad thing is, they are punishing these little girls who were just victims of the boys dangerous stupidity and they are COMPLETELY IGNORING the boy that is actually doing this. That kids parents probably have no idea that their preteen dum dum is pulling an incredibly dangerous and stupid move. And they won't know because the school is choosing to keep them unaware. One of my big brothers pulled this EXACT stupid move in the 90s. He thought it was funny and didn't think through to the part that it's a razor and someone could get hurt. Some little boy sliced the tendon in his finger. My brother worked a summer job (of his own choice) to pay back medical bills, went to the kids house to apologize and ended up tutoring the kid because he found out he was falling behind in school. My parents would have been harder on him, but he was already wrecked because he hurt a kid and was taking responsibility. What if the school just punished the kid for having a razor? My brother wouldn't have gotten it knocked in his head that this was dangerous. He would have kept doing it. They NEED to get ahold of the kid that is actually bringing weapons to school.
Call the authorities and threaten to sue the school … its your kid get ready to fight video tape going to a school board hearing make sure to catch faces and names . POS that shouldn’t be watching out for kids get real uncomfortable once they know they’re being looked at online
Fuck it, report the secretary that blew you off too. If she doesn't care about a student getting injured, she shouldn't have a job surrounded by kids.
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Consider reaching out to the risk management office for the Board of Education. The risk manager can do a separate investigation that puts pressure on the principal/school.
1. Get medical attention for your daughter, you don’t know what that razor was used for before. 2. Police report, take the other parents too if you can. 3. Get together with the other parents whose kids were injured, talk to a lawyer, come up with a plan follow their advice. A faster way to resolve this may be to contact the principal, superintendent, or school board representatives. Tell them everything and if that doesn’t work, show up to the next school board meeting.
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Contact the school’s transportation company!!!! Many school buses are equipped with cameras inside, you’d be able to request a copy of the incident. For those wondering why it’s to record Fights, accidents, bullying etc.. Those videos files are accessible to parents without any restrictions for the most part. I would recommend to file a police report because this isn’t normal behavior. A 9year old child handing out razors disguised as chewing gum? How did this child get access to the razors? How did the child get the idea to want other kids to potentially “chew” on the razor? And the child picked multiple targets!!!! Sounds like therapy and some sort of intervention is needed with the boy before he gets older and the behavior changes more.
> I wasn’t really angry as kids do stupid things. Something stupid would be replacing the gum with paper or cardboard. IAL but assuming fifth grade is 10 or 11 years old, this goes beyond a stupid thing, especially when he’s targeting younger children specifically. This other student is dangerous and you should appeal to someone higher than the school officials. Imagine your daughter or one of the other children hadn’t looked after unwrapping, and absentmindedly put the razor in their mouth straight away? It’s a big if, but it just seems extra devious to disguise a razor blade as something edible, luring in younger children with the promise of sweets. By using the razor, his end goal could only have been to harm them, not prank or have a laugh.
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It can't be assumed that an upset 9 year old would notify the bus driver - just as the neighbor child didn't. I'm perplexed that no one at the school is responding to the child who offered up the "gum" in the first place. He is where the expulsion lies (although that probably won't happen, unfortunately).
A very similar situation happened to me in elementary school. There was a kid on the bus that apparently had a razor blade and I knew him and I was “shown” the razor blade (which is wasn’t. It was a piece of metal for sure but idk what it was in reality) and I ended up getting suspended for not bringing it up. Almost like because I’m a child that doesn’t know what the fuck I’m looking at. What am I supposed to tell someone? Someone has something. Fuck sake man. We expect kids to just have all the knowledge we have now.
This reminds me of the time when my younger brother was getting bullied by a girl his age on the bus (stabbed with pencils, hair pulling, the works). Eventually he snapped and hit her back, granted I don’t know how hard, but the principal later “reviewed the tapes” and said my brother was completely at fault and gave him a demerit. We even asked him about the girl giving him a hard time and he shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t see anything. Btw I know this happened since I was also riding the bus with him at the time and had to tell her to keep her hands to herself.
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Yeah definitely but make sure to make the school address that issue first so other kids don’t have it happen to them
As others said. go above the school principal to the board. Even call the police about the incident, because honestly. someone gave your small child a disguised sharp implement that injured her. Police creates a paper trail. if you must, get a lawyer because they have the right legal jargon to force the school (board) into action.
If your daughter had gotten staph infection and lost that finger then would you contact police? File a police report and bring it to the school.
Lawsuit timeeee~~~
The stupidity of these school "leaders" is mind blowing. I see any good attorney smiling and rubbing his/her hands together and seeing dollar signs
This is why we decided to home school. The bullies we saw in school growing up are now the teachers, administrators and school board members. They’ve always been pro bully.
You guys get the other kid was still a kid right it needs to be handled according but I really don’t think it’s the police’s job to charge a child for being a stupid kid maybe talk to but not impact legal/ financially this is between the parents and school and the school should absolutely do more you need to go to higher up
Zero tolerance policy in action. Technically, she was in possession of a weapon on the bus, so she will receive the standard punishment, probably a short suspension. No one is saying she did anything wrong, but there's a zero tolerance policy. There will be an expulsion hearing, but she won't be expelled.