I was going to post this Toronto Sun story before (I do check the site for local news…)–please see the COMMENTS section below. But in brief, the story alleges that a mother had spent 18 months pleading with everybody and anybody she could think of for help. She also made 163 trips to the principal’s office to report bullying incidents, and called the SCHOOL TRUSTEE 18 times, to no avail. Others are now making similar complaints and some have said they saw this woman’s 8 year-old daughter get bullied, including being beat-up by five boys. In the follow-up story, the trustee is basically blaming the GIRL and her mother.
As an interesting twist, the girl is white, while most of the other kids at school are black. Reverse discrimination? She was frequently called a “dirty white girl.” Can you imagine what would happen if she were black and the white kids were calling her a “dirty black girl” or “little nigger”? The school staff and trustees would be rightfully mortified. And you can bet that every city councillor would want to jump to her rescue to show how great and all-inclusive they are. But no one is saying anything, other than the readers who are disgusted at the school/trustee/school board’s lack of action.
Now, it’s possible that the girl is a bit of a menace and her mother may be a pain in the ass. We don’t know yet. That’s what the trustee is claiming. However, my instinct tells me that, even though the mother is probably difficult, it really boils down to apathetic/pathetic/disgusting idiots failing in their roles as tax-paid professionals, adults, or HUMANS.
Bullies make girl’s life a nightmare — By CHRIS DOUCETTE, TORONTO SUN
Eight-year-old Lyric Elliott says life at her Scarborough school has been an absolute nightmare for the last 18 months thanks to bullies who refuse to leave her alone and an education system that has done too little to protect her.
Now, after 163 visits to the office at William Tredway Junior Public School — and repeated pleas to school staff to keep her daughter safe — the young girl’s mother has decided “enough is enough.
“I pulled her out of school last week,” Jacqueline Elliott told the Toronto Sun Wednesday. “I just couldn’t take it any more.”
She said the final straw came last Thursday when five boys pushed Lyric to the ground, then poked and prodded her with sticks.
“She was bruised and scratched from head to toe,” Jacqueline said of her daughter’s injuries.
Lyric said she loved going to school before she, her baby sister and mom fled an abusive situation in Calgary and moved to the Markham Rd. and Lawrence Ave. E. area in 2008.
But now she’s simply terrified because of the constant harassment she claims she faces.
“It happens just about every day,” the soft-spoken youngster said of the abuse she has allegedly endured. “It’s a bad dream that I can’t wake up from.”
Lyric now has nightmares quite regularly because of the bullying. All she wants is to go to school and feel safe.
“Just stop bullying me and leave me alone,” Lyric said, reaching out to her alleged abusers. “They think it’s funny when they see me cry or get hurt.”
The little said she believes her fellow students single her out “because I’m white.” Her mother said she couldn’t help wonder if race was a factor when Lyric came home from the predominantly black school asking to take a bath.
“I asked her why and she told me it was because the kids were calling her a ‘dirty white girl,’” added Jacqueline, who added that several members of her family are African-Canadian.
In one of the worst incidents, Lyric’s mother claims three first-grade boys threw Lyric on the ground and took turns “dry humping her.”
“Only one of the boys was suspended,” Jacqueline said. “I was told the other two hadn’t been in any trouble before.”
Despite the recent passing of Bill 157 by the province, which is suppose to combat bullying by requiring school staff to file a report on all such incidents, the frustrated mom insisted she has had difficulty getting action.
Jacqueline said there are about five kids, girls and boys, who are terrorizing her daughter. She said she complained to the principal more than 40 times about one girl before her parents were finally notified.
And Jacqueline added she was told by school staff there is no point in suspending the bullies because they would just consider it “a holiday.”
Tired of fighting with Lyric every morning and “dragging” her to school only to have her call home part way through the day claiming to be sick, Jacqueline is now refusing to bring her daughter back to William Tredway even though she could face legal ramifications for withdrawing her child from school.
The mom said she has spoken to the school principal countless times; she has called Toronto Police but they can’t lay charges because the alleged bullies are under 12 years old; education ministry officials told her she must contact her school’s superintendent; and the superintendent, Kerry-Lynn Stadnyk, has told her the principal is dealing with it.
Jacqueline said she has made more than 100 calls to Stadnyk, but she has only actually spoken to her a handful of times.
“I’ve asked many times to meet with her and she won’t,” Jacqueline contended.
However, after a Sun reporter called the Toronto District School Board Wednesday, Jacqueline said she suddenly received a call from Stadnyk offering to meet with her next week.
She said they spoke for 45 minutes on the phone.
A TDSB spoeksman said Stadnyk was unavailable for comment until Thursday.
Readers rally for bullied girl — By CHrIS DOUCETTE, Toronto Sun
When Shannon Anderson read in the Sun about Lyric Elliot’s abuse at the hands of bullies at her Scarborough school, she couldn’t help but have flashbacks to her own eerily similar story.
The woman — one of an endless stream of readers offering support to the little girl — wanted more than anything to reach out, give the eight-year-old a hug and tell her there is hope on the horizon.
“The article brought tears to my eyes,” an empathetic Anderson said.
As a child, Anderson was bullied while attending William Tredway Junior Public School, the same school Lyric was enrolled at until her mother, Jacqueline, pulled her out a little over a week ago.
Despite the efforts by the provincial government and the Toronto District School Board to combat bullying, the now 29-year-old claims little has changed since she attended the school off Bellamy Rd. north of Lawrence Ave. E. in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Anderson said her own two sons, eight and 12, attended William Tredway and she claims both were also bullied. And, like Lyric’s mother, she also allegedly had trouble getting anyone to listen.
“I went to the school’s office on numerous occasions, and straight to the kids telling them to leave my son alone, but nothing was ever done,” Anderson claims. “It drove me nuts!
“It makes me sick to my stomach when i think about it. (The staff at the school and the TDSB) need to stop turning a blind eye to this stuff.”
Her youngest son actually knew Lyric at William Tredway and told his mom he witnessed her getting picked on.
Anderson said she pulled her boys out of William Tredway this year and they are both flourishing at their new school.
“There has been such a big change,” she said, explaining she no longer has to fight with her kids to get them to go to school and they are “very happy”.
Lyric’s mother has been refusing to send her daughter back to the school since last Thursday after five boys allegedly threw her to the ground and poked her with sticks, leaving scratches on her from head to toe. She’s trying to get Lyric into a nearby Catholic school for a fresh start.
Jacqueline claims she spent 18 months pleading with everybody and anybody she could think of for help. She also made 163 trips to the principal’s office to report bullying incidents.
It was only out of desperation she contacted the Sun.
Readers sent dozens of e-mails and posted hundreds of comments on torontosun.com after Lyric’s photo appeared on the front page of Thursday’s paper with the headline “Enough is enough.”
Many were from parents claiming their kids are also being bullied. Several, like Anderson, allege the abuse was happening at William Tredway.
The TDSB was highly critical of the story.
Supt. Kerry-Lynn Stadnyk played down the severity of the girl’s allegations, all of which she said have been investigated. She also claimed the school and the board have been trying to work with the girl’s mom all along, but that Jacqueline has refused their help.
However, Stadnyk refused to elaborate on what has been done to protect Lyric or exactly what help has been offered.
School trustee Scott Harrison went a step further with his comments, both in an interview with the Sun and online. After defending William Tredway as “a very good school,” he seemingly attacked Jacqueline and blamed Lyric.
“This parent has been a thorn in the side of the board for many, many years,” he said with disdain of Jacqueline.
“Lyric chooses to play with these kids and in a rough manner,” Harrison alleged. “When kids are at that age, do they play roughly? Some do.”
Harrison was one of the many people Jacqueline turned to. She called him 17 times.
But Jacqueline said she has never managed to get the trustee on the phone and he has never met her or her daughter.
“They’re making my daughter out to be the bully instead of the victim and that’s just not right,” she said of the TDSB. “That’s like blaming a battered woman for provoking her husband.”
[...] reported recently about a school/trustee/school board’s utter failure to address a case of long-term severe bullying aga… Here is another story (in the COMMENTS section) about a victim and his parents having to suffer [...]