My son who is now 19 had suffered horribly from bullying. It started with the name calling and being pushed around in middle school. He just never fit in with the kids in his class, he was an artist, an individual, someone who was not going to be like the others. Come freshmen year he decided to join the track team, we thought maybe the kids would accept him more if he were on a school sports team. They did not they continued making him the outsider, nobody would accept him, they did not like his clothes, his hair, his black painted nails. He would get pushed around the locker room and in the hallways. Everyone turned a blind eye. We tried to talk to the administration and we got the same old "well if we see it happen we can do something about it" and the ever popular "Josh just walk away from them, or tell them to stop" If telling them to stop would work don't you think it would have been done by now? He became more and more distant from our family and hid himself behind his hairstyles and his clothes. He was in a very dark place for quite a while. During his Junior year is when things got very bad for him. He was still being bothered by the same group of kids, except this time he was getting notes put on his locker saying "fag....god This was the last straw for me, I worked at the school and I went down to the principal's office and demanded they call the police about this, in my opinion the "kill yourself" was a death threat. The principal said she would get the police on the phone she said she would try. So I walked out of work to goto the police station, since we love in a small town the police were not there they were patrolling. When I got back to work I was called into the superintendent's office and told that the police were called and I would be told when they were there. I find out that the police showed up and I was not called back down until after they spoke to my son alone. Even the police said that they could not do anything about this because there were no witnesses. The social worker said that my son must have pissed someone off and the principal said it was normal teenage behavior and to ignore them, they wanted a reaction from him. The next day I did find out who put the note in his locker I went down to the principal and told her what I found out, the social worker was called in  and once again my son was interrogated without my knowledge. When I was called down my son was so irate he turned on me with his anger and told me I did not believe him either. What I found out was that the social worker and the principal accused my son of having a "love triangle" with middle schoolers and that's why they put nasty letters in his locker. This was the last straw for my family, we pulled our son out of school and I went to every bully meeting I could in my county to tell my story, only to find out that since our school had a "bully policy" they were doing a good thing. Schools do not care about our children we as parents MUST teach out children to respect others it will not get done with anyone but us.

My son started his new high school middle of his junior year and by the time he graduated he received a Pride award for overcoming this hurdle in his life. He became a mentor to freshmen and talked about his story with others hoping to educate them. I did however feel good that the principal and the guidance councilor did leave the district, I only hope they do not work again with kids or they have educated themselves and never blame another child for being bullied.