Centennial School not implementing bullying policies

This is the third incident that my children had to deal with bullying yet Centennial schools failed to implement their bullying policy. It is consistently swept under the rug until a parent makes enough noise and goes up the ladder until they are forced to handle the matter yet the damage is already done.

My daughter attended Willow Dale last year when I received a phone call from the principal describing an incident where a student told my daughter that she was on his "hit list". When asked what was done about it, her response was "I told him that it was not a nice thing to say" and assured me that the students parents were notified. I was displeased with how a terroristic threat was handled so I contacted the local authorities so they could teach the student a lesson on how serious this infact is and the potential consequences for their actions. The students father reached out to extend his apologies and told me that him nor his wife was made aware by the school.

I decided to place my children in public school due to my son being bullied for three years at a private school with nothing being done about it even with numerous emails back and forth between myself and teachers, counselors, principals, and superintendent. The bullying started out as verbal, name calling and insults and escalated to physical assault. My son was withdrawn and had to be put on an antidepressant due to the effects of the bullying. No parent conference, no disciplinary action for the perpetrators and no support for my son. Public schools was obviously no better when it came to handling such situations.

Fast forward and my son started 9th grade at Tennent this year. I had hopes that he would enjoy his high school years and that things would be different, seeing that high school is when you finally find your crowd, and feel like you fit in. I noticed a change in my son as this school year progressed, his grades were dwindling, he didn't want to go on the bus to and from school, he stopped going to strength training, and counted the days to summer. He even discussed with me that he wanted to attend online school next year instead of going to Tennent. After many of conversations and reassurance from him that he was not being bullied he finally opened up and told me what was going on. A junior cornered him in the bathroom with three of his friends insulting him and putting him down. If that wasnt enough, the boy decided to target him at dismissal on the way to the busses pushing him and calling him a "bitch". As soon as I was made aware of this I emailed my son's school counselor to make her aware of the situation. My son wrote a statement and it was sent to the administration. As soon as my son knew what the boys name was he emailed the counselor to make her aware of who it was and he asked what can be done about it. I was proud that he had the strength to tell me. Many kids don't due to the fear of the repercussions from the perpetrator. Monday was the last day of school and I questioned myself if I did enough as a parent, is something being done about it so that no one else will have to endure what my son did. I decided to reach out to the boys mother in hopes that she would be responsive to what I was about to tell her about her son. To my surprise she was very responsive, she expressed her deepest apologies, and once again she told me that she was never notified by school nor was her son being counseledby school. Within two hours of speaking to her I had a knock at the door, the mother brought her son to my house to formally apologize to my son for treating him that way. If it wasn't for me reaching out, that mother would have never known, the bullying could have continued, and no lessons would have been learned.

Bullying is not kids just being kids, it's psychological warfare. The damage that bullying causes is lifelong scars, ptsd, depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol dependency, suicide, and violence. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among teens. We entrust our children's safety to these schools, and in every aspect of the word including physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Our schools need to do better for our children, their future depends on it, how they perform in school, their future careers, their relationships with others, and their self worth.