Dekalb Protest Focuses on School Bullying
By Michael King and Keith Whitney for 11alive.com
DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. -- How bad is bullying in schools? A group of protestors are accusing the DeKalb school system of intimidating teachers to the point where they don't report bullying the way they're supposed to.
The protestors say the DeKalb County school system is bullying teachers into not reporting bullies.
"DeKalb County is a gangsta school system," said Dr. John Trotter of the MACE Teacher's Union. "They won't go by the law. There are anti-bullying statutes, but I believe they're sweeping all this under the rug."
The group got no argument from Tamara McWhorter, a parent whose 7th grader at Columbia Middle School was suspended just a few hours earlier, she says, for standing up to a bully.
"He said he was going to shoot me, and I said if you shoot me, why don't you just put down the gun and fight like a man?" said suspended student Patrick Almond.
His mom says while she filed charges against the other student, the school suspended both boys -- a common practice critics say, that penalizes both the bully and the victim.
"Something needs to be done about the bullying, because when one child bullies another child and that child retaliates, it (creates) problems for them," McWhorter said. "And I think it results in kids being killed, kids being beat up, intimidated -- kids not wanting to go to school. Teachers can't report on them cause they won't even process a grievance on them according to state law."
School officials did not respond to repeated calls about the complaints, but have said they are reviewing their anti-bullying policies in the wake of an elementary student's recent shocking suicide.
"A child shouldn't have to go to school, afraid to go to school; afraid to talk to officials," McWhorter said. "When my child was threatened today, he was to the point where he didn't even tell the officials -- he called me."
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