Schools' bullying response angers Warren, Bristol parents

Two families’ experiences with bullying lead to tense school committee meeting

By Ted Hayes
Posted 10/23/18

Resentment and distrust of the Bristol Warren Regional School District that has been festering online for weeks, finally boiled over Monday evening, when two families whose daughters have allegedly …

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Schools' bullying response angers Warren, Bristol parents

Two families’ experiences with bullying lead to tense school committee meeting

Posted

Resentment and distrust of the Bristol Warren Regional School District that has been festering online for weeks, finally boiled over Monday evening, when two families whose daughters have allegedly experienced emotional and physical bullying at two Warren schools appeared before the school committee to demand answers and to tell their stories.

After extensive debate about whether to allow their comments in public or not, the school committee ultimately decided to keep things private, prompting outbursts and criticism from a vocal audience.

Both families were invited to meet behind closed doors with school committee members, and both delivered lengthy written statements about the alleged bullying and the school district’s response. Both families shared those statements with the Warren Times-Gazette as well.
School leaders were concerned that a public airing of personnel grievances against district employees would not be fair to the accused and could put the district in legal peril.

Instead, much of the meeting involved tense back and forth jabs with audience members, who accused school committee members of being afraid of the truth and of not having students’ best interests at heart, and school committee members, who insisted their attempts to close discussions to the public had more to do with their legal obligations to district employees than any attempt to stifle the truth.

On the agenda were requests to speak by Beth and Matt Francis, whose daughter Beilah attends Kickemuit Middle School, and Liz Lima, whose daughter Ilana attends Hugh Cole.

Both families have been active social media critics of the district, claiming in multiple Facebook posts that for months school administrators have failed to adequately address their concerns.

Beilah Francis
Last school year, the Francis family learned that Beilah, then a sixth-grader at KMS, was the subject of a rumor among classmates that she was pregnant.

According to the family’s written statement, Ms. Francis found out about the rumors in early March, and alleged in recent Facebook posts and during a closed session with the school committee Monday night, that the rumors were perpetrated by a Kickemuit Middle School employee whose daughter is a classmate of Beilah’s.

The Francis family statement claims that the employee is no longer working at KMS, but still works in the district. Her statement also alleges that Superintendent of Schools Mario Andrade has promised that this particular employee will never work in the same building as Beilah Francis.
Ms. Francis said that after months of discussions and meetings with school leaders, she has concluded that while administrators initially sought to help and shield her child from the employee, while also trying to make her feel more comfortable in the classroom, their efforts have fallen woefully short.

As a result, she told a reporter Monday and also wrote in a Facebook post, her daughter began suffering from anxiety, suicidal thoughts and became withdrawn. She said her daughter was briefly hospitalized because of depression and suicidal thoughts.

Though Beilah is doing better now, Ms. Francis told a reporter Monday, “she has gone through a lot.”

When she met with school committee members in private session at approximately 10 p.m. Monday night, she read from one of her prepared statements:

“We as parents of these children have had enough of the lack of leadership, incompetence, disregard for safety, mental abuse with reference to dismissal of the level of severity of these actions of bullying and the re-victimization of our children when they see nothing is done to those who have hurt them,” she wrote. “It is over and we are not going to allow you to sweep it under the rug any longer.”

Ilana Lima
Ms. Lima has a similar story. Though her daughter was not the subject of false rumors, she said Ilana has been severely bullied by three other students since last year. In dozens of meetings and phone calls with school officials from last school year into this school year, Ms. Lima, a special education teacher herself, said she attempted to agree on “contracts” with the district that would protect her child by keeping her separated from the bullies and taking other measures to give her a stress-free school environment. All the promises she was given that her child would be protected have fallen short, she said, and in response she has been a vocal critic of the administration on Facebook, where her posts on the matter have generated hundreds of comments.

It’s a role she never wanted, she said, but she felt compelled to go public after realizing how far short of her expectations the district has allegedly fallen:

“Despite the fact that I have become this figurehead of bullying, I really just wanted my daughter to be safe and go to school happy. But because this has happened to so many others, it just took off. I didn’t mean for this to get to the point where I was well-known in the community. I kind of enjoy my private life, but apparently this is so rampant and people have hit such solid walls with the administration, that people have kind of turned to me for expressing their anger over their children’s bullying situations. A lot of people have been asking for help.”

Monday’s meeting
Both Beilah and Ilana appeared with their parents at Monday’s meeting, though it was unclear for some time whether they would be allowed to tell their full story before the school committee in open session.

After convening the meeting and immediately going into executive session to discuss the legalities of allowing the parents to name names in public, school committee members emerged about an hour later and, after some discussion and testy back and forth with the public, rejected a motion by Marge McBride that would have allowed the two families to speak, but only in private session (Ms. McBride and fellow members Paul Silva and Bill O’Dell voted for the private meeting, but all others voted against).

Those who voted against requiring the closed session, however, cautioned that while they wanted to hear parental concerns in public, their statements must not name employees specifically, as doing so could violate school employees’ legal rights.

“I hope that if we move forward to not (continue this to a future meeting or speak in private), that we be mindful that there are children involved," committee member Erin Schofield said.

The committee’s discussion rankled many of the audience members, who accused members of taking the side of teachers over children, trying to bury the issue until after the November election, and of being afraid of the truth.

“What about the children’s rights?” called out one audience member.

The evening took another unexpected twist when two attorneys representing Council 94 and the National Education Association union approached the podium and requested that the parents’ comments be heard in closed session after all, as airing personnel grievances in public would violate the collective bargaining agreement the district has in place with teachers and staff. After another vote, the school committee voted 5-4 to take the two parents’ concerns into executive session, after which they agreed to hear public comment on the matter.

Said Mr. Silva in voting for that closed session:

“I don’t want to be involved in something that I could have two union reps file complaints against us, and I don’t want to have it filed against me.”

Ilana speaks
Ms. Lima went into closed session first, bringing her daughter Ilana in with her. During their turn with the committee, Ilana read a statement presenting her case:

“Hi, my name is Ilana. I am in fourth grade at Hugh Cole School. I have a bully. He has done a lot of bad things to me, but when I tell the teachers they do nothing. They say they will only talk to him, and most of the time they don’t. It’s aggravating when the adults don’t help me, so he hurts me more. When no teachers are watching us, he finds a way to come over to me and hurt me, and when I told the adults they don’t report it and their face in motion shows they don’t even care. It makes me feel like I don’t want to go to school because the adults don’t keep me safe. I just want the adults and kids to follow the rules.”

Ms. Francis followed, spending about 40 minutes with committee members behind closed doors.

Superintendent's response

In a conversation before the meeting, Supt. Mario Andrade said he is doing everything in his power to protect students who are being bullied, and to provide a safe learning environment for all students. Speaking of his recent discussions with Ms. Lima, he said: “We’ve addressed a lot of the issues that she’s raised. With any school system, it’s about that open communication to improvement. We’ve had numerous meetings in attempting to provide a safe learning environment for her daughter. We will meet as frequently as we can with any parent who wants to talk.”

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