When kids threw bottles out the window of the school bus at her daughter Brittnay, Angel Mort begged Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) officials to switch her bus assignment, but they did nothing. When 12-year-old Brittnay pleaded with administrators at Bradley Francis Middle School for help because a group of girls was harassing, hitting and punching her between classes, they put all the girls in mediation, but punished no one.
On the morning of October 17, Brittnay’s mom warned the school principal that the girls were threatening to “jump” Brittnay. He did nothing. By the end of the day, she was on the ground in the school parking lot, being kicked and beaten by not one, but three girls.
That was the day Mort emailed school board members and contacted the media, as we reported here a couple of weeks ago. Finally, CMS officials did something. They suspended Brittnay for 10 days for punching back at the girls, which she believes she did before her head hit the ground and things got blurry. They barred her furious parents from school grounds for “making a scene” when they confronted the principal after the incident. And the three girls? Despite the fact that all three of Brittnay’s attackers were charged with assault by the Huntersville Police Department after an investigation by the school resource officer, two of the girls were back in school in the days after the incident and the third has since been seen at school. Meanwhile, school officials sent Brittnay’s parents a letter, extending her suspension.
Like Brittnay’s parents and readers who’ve been following this story, I’m still seeking answers to some basic questions.
Does it even remotely concern CMS officials that children charged with assault are back in school? Why is Brittnay still banned from school when she hasn’t been charged with assault, and what, if anything, does the school plan to do to protect her when she returns?
These questions could be answered without revealing the identity of the girls involved. Before the first column I wrote about this, I called the school’s principal, Ronald Dixon, for comment. He has yet to call me back. School spokesperson Jerri Haigler promised me a response to the questions above two weeks ago, and even called us earlier this week to ask for an extension. To be fair, we even held up a follow-up article in order to give CMS time to respond. On Friday, we finally received a trite statement that answered none of our questions, but claimed that CMS had followed the student handbook.
Meanwhile, while we waited two weeks for our “response,” CMS officials tried to squelch this story by telling school board members and concerned readers who called Supt. Jim Pughsley’s office and the offices of other school administrators that Creative Loafing didn’t contact CMS to get “the other side of the story.” That is simply not true. We’re still eagerly waiting for answers from CMS officials, and we’re willing to print them without revealing the identities of the students involved. But needless to say, we’re not holding our breath.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that this was a sloppy discipline job followed by an even sloppier cover-up. It should concern the parents of students at Bradley Francis that children charged with assault are allowed to return to school so quickly when the school handbook mandates otherwise.
Children who call Brittnay’s house every day to report what’s going on at school say the girls are planning to “get” her when she gets back. I don’t doubt this. I just hope school administrators plan to stop it before she winds up like 13-year-old Lauren Jay, whose mother pleaded with school officials at Alexander Middle School to change her bus assignment after two other girls developed a habit of smacking Jay around. Again, they did nothing. After surgery following a vicious beating in February, Jay spent two months drinking through a straw after one of the girls fractured her jaw.
Because their stories are all so eerily similar, the barrage of mail I’ve gotten from frustrated parents makes me wonder what’s really going on at CMS. Parents who claim they asked for changes in classroom, bus and school assignments to stop bullies from harassing their children say they were all but ignored as the harassment gradually escalated to violence. When their kids were left with no option other than to fight back, sometimes against more than one child, all the children were punished. CMS says violence in schools is down. I’m not sure I buy that. If CMS punished no one after Brittnay complained multiple times about being hit, kicked, and beaten with a brush between classes, one has to wonder if anyone at the school even bothered to record those incidents or others like them. Somehow, I doubt it.
If CMS doesn’t want to talk about this problem, we will. On November 21, 106.5 FM will sponsor a four-hour, on-air call-in session between 3pm and 7pm for parents and students to talk about school violence. Tune in or call in to let the community know what’s going on.
Contact Tara Servatius at tara.servatius@ cln.com.
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2003.
