Would you expect communication from school?

[roobee]

Our student handbook is signed by every student and parent each year and it spells out a number of things like "it's the school's responsibility to Create and monitor safe conditions in the school environment". I also found the following in our elementary school handbook: Students must not Engage in Sexually Inappropriate Behavior, Sexual Assault and Students must protect the safety and rights of others. Students must not sexually attack nor sexually abuse another person. Students must not engage in non-consensual sexual intercourse, sexual contact or indecent exposure with another person.

It may be helpful to find the student handbook for your school and highlight how the school has failed to protect your daughter and live up to the rights and responsibilities listed in the document they created. There should also be specific disciplinary procedures in the handbook. I'm pretty confident that if this happened at our school they would send out schoolwide communication about the incident and share steps they're taking to prevent it from happening again (we've received this type of communication regarding pretty serious issues - the type that could end up on social media or the news - and I would rank this issue in that category). That should be the expectation anyway.

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. I've had a few encounters with our school and sometimes it feels like gaslighting or circling wagons with the way they respond. I don't think I've ever received a response that was something like "we take this seriously, we've taken steps to address this and we'll work to improve in the future", which is all I've ever hoped for. Instead I get back details about why their actions were appropriate - so basically just a bunch of excuses.

[mmsmom]

I would absolutely contact the police on my own at this point. They have the know how to do a forensic check on that cell phone, and as others mentioned, are properly equipped to know all the different ways the phone may have transmitted an image or video of your daughter. I'm so disgusted and angry for you. Of course that girl is lying about dropping the phone accidentally. I'd have said that "my daughter is a really good kid, so I have absolutely no reason to not believe how she said she the phone was." Unbelievable. Do not waste any more time, and contact the police.

I agree. Your DD is potentially the victim of a crime. The school did not notify you that a potential crime was committed against DD. There are so many things horribly wrong with this situation. I would absolutely file a police report. I would also complain to someone higher up about non-students at school. Do not worry for one second about causing problems for the teachers. The school has created an unsafe situation and is violating their own visitor policies. You have no idea what is on that phone and what the girls may have done with the pictures.

ETA: More thoughts as I am still fuming over this.... I totally understand not wanting your DD to have to talk to police. I don’t know what I would do in your situation. The school is clearly violating all kinds of rules and policies and if there is even a question of a sexual crime they should be reporting it themselves. I truly hope the principal comes back with a more acceptable response. I know middle schoolers do dumb things and let’s hope this was just one of them but the chance that it could be something more can’t be ignored. The school must show how they will prevent these incidents and at the very least that will require that they not allow any non-students in the school unsupervised any time students are there.

[bisous]

This is a thought--and I'd love to hear feedback from the rest of the board. What about moving up the chain instead of going to the police? The person you talked to does not sound adequately versed in administrative procedure or aware enough of what kind of potential implications this incident might uncover or expose the school to. SOMEONE above them will undoubtedly be better trained and more cautious and careful about these sorts of things. It should raise all kinds of red flags to anyone with any kind of proper training in school administration. Can you keep moving up the chain? To the principal proper? To the district administration? To the superintendent? My guess is that someone there will recognize the gross potential for harm to the children and to the school if things persist and will want to minimize the impact to both through swift action.

Fellow BBBers what do you think? I'm trying to honor the PPs request for minimum impact on her DD but swift action for change in policy.

I'm not at all convinced that what happened to her DD won't happen to another child under the current circumstances.

[bisous]

This is a thought--and I'd love to hear feedback from the rest of the board. What about moving up the chain instead of going to the police? The person you talked to does not sound adequately versed in administrative procedure or aware enough of what kind of potential implications this incident might uncover or expose the school to. SOMEONE above them will undoubtedly be better trained and more cautious and careful about these sorts of things. It should raise all kinds of red flags to anyone with any kind of proper training in school administration. Can you keep moving up the chain? To the principal proper? To the district administration? To the superintendent? My guess is that someone there will recognize the gross potential for harm to the children and to the school if things persist and will want to minimize the impact to both through swift action.

Fellow BBBers what do you think? I'm trying to honor the PPs request for minimum impact on her DD but swift action for change in policy.

I'm not at all convinced that what happened to her DD won't happen to another child under the current circumstances.

[newnana]

This is a thought--and I'd love to hear feedback from the rest of the board. What about moving up the chain instead of going to the police? The person you talked to does not sound adequately versed in administrative procedure or aware enough of what kind of potential implications this incident might uncover or expose the school to. SOMEONE above them will undoubtedly be better trained and more cautious and careful about these sorts of things. It should raise all kinds of red flags to anyone with any kind of proper training in school administration. Can you keep moving up the chain? To the principal proper? To the district administration? To the superintendent? My guess is that someone there will recognize the gross potential for harm to the children and to the school if things persist and will want to minimize the impact to both through swift action.

Fellow BBBers what do you think? I'm trying to honor the PPs request for minimum impact on her DD but swift action for change in policy.

I'm not at all convinced that what happened to her DD won't happen to another child under the current circumstances.

These are my exact thoughts. I'd escalate through the school system. Random unsupervised groups of individuals are never allowed in our schools for all sorts of safety reasons outside of COVID. This situation is beyond the pale. Good kids do bad things, even just dumb things with bad consequences. They are calling your child a liar. But even if nothing happened to your daughter at all, the situation described with oodles of unsupervised people in the building, not okay.

Love the suggestion for referring to the student handbook and the school and school district policies on what safety is supposed to look like.

Figure out what a safe situation looks like to you and make requests. This is a time for more diligence, not less.

ETA: I'm thinking more about the remote learning thread and this is resonating even more with me. We are reducing capacity indoors. Unfettered, door is open policy to any random kids is unnecessarily increasing number of kids in the building, increasing covid risk. These kids in our district would not be in the any room together congregating, would be highly supervised. Kids in their home schools all are currently prohibited from lockers, congregating in hallways, required to eat lunch in class. All that stuff that is normally fun at school is prohibited. Instead, it sounds like this free for all is the exact opposite of all of that, increasing these kids risks for infection spread in addition to all the stuff that happens when you have an unsupervised group of tweens/teens.

I am completely flabbergasted on your behalf and think a specific list of requests through the school district is the way to go

[jerigirl]

Our student handbook is signed by every student and parent each year and it spells out a number of things like "it's the school's responsibility to Create and monitor safe conditions in the school environment". I also found the following in our elementary school handbook: Students must not Engage in Sexually Inappropriate Behavior, Sexual Assault and Students must protect the safety and rights of others. Students must not sexually attack nor sexually abuse another person. Students must not engage in non-consensual sexual intercourse, sexual contact or indecent exposure with another person.

It may be helpful to find the student handbook for your school and highlight how the school has failed to protect your daughter and live up to the rights and responsibilities listed in the document they created. There should also be specific disciplinary procedures in the handbook. I'm pretty confident that if this happened at our school they would send out schoolwide communication about the incident and share steps they're taking to prevent it from happening again (we've received this type of communication regarding pretty serious issues - the type that could end up on social media or the news - and I would rank this issue in that category). That should be the expectation anyway.

I agree. Our school's use of technology policy probably addresses something like this incident.

[jerigirl]

The Principal probably has a boss and then on up to the Superintendent. Your district probably also has a safety and security department. We have School Resource (Police) Officers assigned to each campus. That might be another route to go as well.

[jerigirl]

And ironically it is Digital Citizenship week.

[Liziz]

Thanks for all the continued support and brainstorming on best ways to address moving forward.

Last night I did pull both the elementary and middle school code of conduct for our district. I was disturbed to find that all references to assault, sexual assault, in inappropriate sexual behavior specifically spelled out that the offense must be "physical". I'm beyond disturbed and appalled at how that is still flying in this day and age. There is reference to the fact that laws of our state must be obeyed though, but I was really concerned to see that there wasn't a statement or policy I could pull from the actual code of conduct. It seems like a gaping hole. I also read all the Technology responsible use rules and documentation, and when reading with this in mind, find it also to be incredibly vague. There isn't even a policy in either code of conduct that says anything about cell phone use in schools, period!

Unrelated to this incident, we did receive notification just this week that the school is about to begin their annual sexual assault and abuse awareness training to all students. That training explicitly teaches children that photos in a situation like this are called Sexual Abuse Photos. I did bring this up at our meeting this morning and made it clear they can't both be teaching kids that what happened is a Sexual Abuse Photo while also writing it off as a good kid playing a "bad trick" (which is what my DD was told.....oh, and this training also specifies that it is always wrong to play any "tricks" that involve looking at or touching someone's body)

I agree with the suggestions that the next step is higher up in the school administration. We're waiting on a conversation with the principal herself at this point (vs. the Vice Principal we met with). I know that she didn't originally take it seriously either as she was aware of it yesterday within a few minutes of my daughter reporting it, but left it to the Vice Principal to address and did not reach out to contact us or get involved in addressing it in any way. I'm hoping that when the Vice Principal relays the conversation from our meeting this morning it will be an "oh my gosh, we totally failed here and need to make major changes ASAP" moment. If that's not the response we get, we will move on to the district administration. Oh, and thank you for the suggestion of the School Resource Officer -- our school does have one, and she is a police officer. Although like I said we do not want to go the police report route unless we feel we have no other options, I've been wondering how to figure out what the process would be if we did feel we need to go that route, and she might be able to help with some of those answers.

[DualvansMommy]

The principal is naive, most likely the pic was for snapchat, which is easily deleted. They need to have the parents of that student and possibly the other kids to figure out what and who were in on it, sounds like a challenge/dare situation. I would absolutely escalate this and I'm usually one to take a wait and see approach.

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That is my thought too. Just because it's deleted from the camera roll means nothing to me. i would expect a phone call next day, to give grace in midst of covid but yes i'd be livid. Also be asking to have those middle schoolers go to an isolated bathroom away from younger grades. At the very minimum!