Our family recently returned from a extended weekend in New York City to visit my husband's family. We received several pieces of welcome news from the school at the end of last week just before we headed north to New York City. First, we learned that the Guidance Counselor met with our Darling Daughter1 (DD1) and her over-zealous classmate (OZC) who led the haircutting incident last month. In this meeting, the guidance counselor facilitated a conversation between the two girls regarding how friends should treat each other. And second, the assistant principal confirmed that she had been in contact with the father of our daughter's OZC to discuss the haircutting incident and the school's follow up. In response to these updates, as my husband, my daughters, and I were driving to New York I remarked that we could, perhaps, celebrate the close of this challenging episode at school and look forward to a more carefree spring. However, as my husband and I reflected more closely upon this seeming resolution over the weekend, we have not yet been able to put the incident behind us because we have realized that we do not yet perceive that the school has responded adequately to our concerns for our daughter's safety. After spending this morning volunteering at school with my DD1 and observing closely the interaction between my daughter and her OZC, I remain disturbed by what appears to be the OZC's fixation on my DD1. I believe that her OZC is not be trusted in terms of my daughter's emotional and physical safety at the school, for at every opportunity she was not being directly supervised in the two hours I was at school today, including lunch time, the line going to recess, and the playground, the OZC had her hands and arms perpetually flung around my DD1.
What constitutes inappropriate and/or aggressive behavior on the part of one student to another? What constitutes harassment and what constitutes bullying? Why do the personnel at my daughter's local elementary school seem intent on minimizing how serious the haircutting incident was, or how concerned they or we should be about the OZC's mode of interaction with our daughter throughout the year? In the notes from our school conference several weeks ago, the assistant principal stated that the staff at the school have not witnessed any "aggressive behavior" nor any "physical contact" between the OZC and our daughter, and she reiterated in an email last week that the haircutting incident was not considered to be an event warranting a discipline referral or a recognized case of "inappropriate behavior," even though the incident was significant enough to result in a trip to the principal's office for the three kindergarteners who were directly involved. Furthermore, in the most recent email from the assistant principal in which she communicated that she had made contact with the OZC's father, she indicated that they discussed the school-related "consequences" of the haircutting incident. And yet when I look back upon the events of the last several weeks, it is not at all clear to me what meaningful consequences have been imposed on the OZC by the faculty or administrators at the school. What on-going help is she receiving from the school in learning a modulated approach to befriending our daughter? And what degree of "monitoring" can be expected from the lunchroom and recess aides, when the assistant principal reports that they have not previously noticed anything amiss between the two girls?
My husband and I are left with the task of deciding what we want to do and for what we need to advocate next. At a minimum, we will be scheduling another meeting with the school principal soon to formally request that our daughter not be enrolled in the same first grade class as her OZC. What we are not so clear on is whether or not we want to or should engage with the deputy superintendent to notify her of our concerns regarding the way the school personnel has responded to the haircutting incident and our lingering fears regarding our daughter's safety. We also will be deliberating upon whether or not we want to request a school transfer to another nearby elementary school. At the core of our deliberations is the central question of whether or not our daughter's over-zealous classmate poses a genuine threat to our daughter's safety, and if so, what needs to be done to contain the threat. How do we know as parents and/or as educators when a child's safety is at risk? How do we know if/when one child poses a threat to another child? How can we tell if our daughter is in danger, and if so, what should be done about the risk posed?
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