May 5, 2010 – A child stands over my son during Music and says “Bang, Bang, You’re Dead!”.The principal, Dr. Tish Howard, is unavailable (second time during a death related threat) but the assistant principal Tim Kasik says the child is mainstream and does not remember saying it. Later I am told when Tish Howard reminded the child of the threat, the child acknowledges it occured. Tim Kasik again tells me this is a “transient threat” (second time he performs this analysis which I am unable to trust) and I have nothing to worry about. This incident while unrelated just happens to occur during school before my son comes home with poop in his pants.
My son comes home from school for the second time in two weeks and smells like poop. The first time I smell the poop and find a small amount on his boxers. I don't make a big deal of it and
tell him to go to the bathroom when he feels the need. I never imagined what happens next. My father picked him up and finds poop in his pants and questions him. He explains he is afraid to go to the bathroom because boys are looking at him. On this day, he went to the bathroom in the morning and children are lining up to peek through a broken door while he is on the toilet. These children are also wetting paper towels and hitting him with them from the adjacent stall. He estimates this has happened 8-10 times recently and is able to identify only one child. My son said he was afraid to tell his teacher because she is critical of his bathroom breaks.I went to the school the following day and again only the assistant principal, Tim Kasik was available. He thanks me for bringing the incident to their attention and lets me know a work order has been submitted to fix the door. A few emails were exchanged with his teacher, Ellen Cormier with Tish Howard copied. I brought up the continued safety concerns and let her know I explained to my son that the school had failed by allowing this to happen and it would be fixed.
Tish Howard first response to this is on email at 5:13PM the following evening. She called my statements and assumptions “erroneous and misleading”. She says “There were NO adults negligent for whatever behaviors your son incurred in the restroom and there were not two threats of shooting.” She ends her email requesting a meeting to discuss my sons “contributing and non contributing behaviors”. (In our meeting she interrupts and denies ever saying this. I tell her and Scott Brabrand that I have this email printed if they would like to see it. Scott Brabrand does not seem interested in seeing it or acknowledging her untruthful denial.)
- My son is sitting on a toilet attempting to use the restroom being peered at and pelted with wet paper towels and he’s so afraid to go to the bathroom he poops his pants and she wants to look at his contributory actions!
- In a subsequent meeting Dr. Tish Howard explains to me that this is what she calls a "teachable moment" with an I just did your son a favor attitude. (She reiterates this at our meeting with Scott Brabrand and he simply nods his head)
Please email me or post a comment if you have questions about anything in this post. My goal is to have these serious threats be taken more seriously.
Jason
💩🩳
ReplyDelete