Re: Divided 10th Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Peer Harassment Case

[Guest guest]

I agree with you, Amy but where were the parents or legal guardian(s)

of this teenager?!? They surely must have noticed something was going

on in the more than 12 months this was going on.

[Guest guest]

I'm not sure how to respond. The article did say that " most of this

activity (and all of the actual sexual contact) took place outside of

school " however it does not say when or where other than the one incident on

the school bus. I'm not sure that it can be assumed that the parents should

have noticed. It would depend on what the girl was able verbalize. It did

state in the article that she is mildly retarded. And the fact that the

girl was going to the counselor and saying that the " boys were bothering

her " and the counselor did not push for more information leads one to

believe that they were likely not communicating any of this to the parents.

It took our son one year to tell us that a school resource officer (SRO) who

was a city police officer assigned to the school had restrained him in a

prone position on the floor, held his hands behind his back and pressed on

the " pressure point " on our son's neck to subdue him. When our son told us

this, of course, we asked why he waited so long to tell us. He said that it

still scares him to think about this and gives him nightmares. This helped

to explain why he was terrified to go to school because of the bullying and

two assaults by peers as well as this incident where he was abused by

adults. And there was further abuse by school staff. We also had to take

him out of school for over 10 weeks upon our psychiatrist's advice for

severe anxiety resulting from the hostile school environment. And some of

this other information only came to light over one year later in the midst

of our recent due process hearing after receiving documents and preparing

the hearing exhibits.

I would be hesitant to even wonder if the parents were negligent or to blame

considering the girl's apparent inability to clearly articulate what was

happening. In our son's case, it was the same thing. He would tell us that

" the teachers won't help me " . He has difficulty communicating his thoughts

and feelings and we took that to mean with academics.when in reality he was

saying they won't help me when the other kids hurt me or even when the other

adults hurt me. I crushed us when we realized that for one whole year we

were forcing him to attend school and the adults that we were supposed to

trust his safety with were in fact as guilty as the kids that hurt him.

Amy A. Sosa

amy.sosa@...

Coppell, Texas

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Posted by: " twinnfun "

<mailto:markandbirgit@...?Subject=%20Re%3A%20Divided%2010th%20Circ

uit%20Affirms%20Dismissal%20of%20Peer%20Harassment%20Case>

markandbirgit@... <http://profiles.yahoo.com/twinnfun> twinnfun

Sat Jan 12, 2008 4:50 pm (PST)

I agree with you, Amy but where were the parents or legal guardian(s)

of this teenager?!? They surely must have noticed something was going

on in the more than 12 months this was going on.