My name is Holly. My son, Aidan, has been the victim of physical bullying on quite a few occasions. In September of 2012, not long after the beginning of the school year I received a phone call from the school nurse telling me there had been an accident on the playground and Aidan had a few scrapes on his face but he was ok. We picked him up from school that day and I wouldn't have called what he had on his face scrapes. He had really bad road rash on his face and a huge lump and bruise on his forehead. Aidan told me that at recess a boy, Emmanuel, was holding his arms behind his back. Aidan didn't like the confinement and was trying to get away so Emmanuel pushed him and smashed his face against the playground macadam. The following day I approached the principal about the situation and he assured me that he would take care of it. Well his way of taking care of it was calling a bunch of kids down that witnessed the incident who were all friends of Emmanuel of course and questioning them about what happened. Everyone except my son agreed that it was an "accident" and so Emmanuel was never punished in any way. He just got away with it. Oh by the way, miraculously not a single teacher on the playground that day witnessed any of this so questioning them was pointless. Now my son is not an angel, he's rammy and gets himself in trouble sometimes. He was suspended from school for 3 days for taking a neon green mini squirt gun to school to show to one of his friends. I understand the theory behind the punishment, but really? A 2nd grader with an obvious toy needs to lose 3 days of education? About a week ago, Aidan came home and told me that he was put in the "recovery room" aka in-school suspension for elementary students, because some kid named Hunter punched him in the face and then lied to the teacher and said that Aidan punched him instead. Once again, no teacher actually saw anything happen, so just believed the heresay and punished my kid without any evidence. Wednesday of this week, Aidan comes home with a big lumped up bruise on his arm. He tells me two boys were fighting before free breakfast and pushed him into the middle of their fight and Aidan got kicked in the arm by one of them. Aidan told the teacher of the boy who kicked him about what had happened, yet again nothing was seen by a teacher, and the teacher told Aidan that the boy would lose recess for the day for what he had done to him. My main question here is why is it that my son gets suspended for 3 days for taking a squirt gun to school which didn't hurt anyone in any way, but he gets physically abused on 3 separate occasions and the other kids involved get a slap on the wrist and told don't do it again? Plus, on the 1 occasion Aidan actually gets punished for someone else hitting him! Then my second concern is why there is never a teacher around to witness anything. When I drop my son off at school, I am trusting the teachers, counselors, and principals to be taking care of and protecting him. Afterall, IT IS THEIR JOBS!!!! Where are they when these incidents occur? And why don't they do anything to stop the incidents from occurring again? I'm at a loss. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm going to keep on fighting for my son though because he doesn't deserve to be bullied like this. No one does and if me fighting helps stop even one child from being hurt again, then I'm doing my part in the fight against bullying. STAY STRONG EVERYONE!