Abusive Teacher

[Iowanmom]

What is the name of your state? Iowa

Could someone please give me some advice?
I'm sitting here crying as i write this.
I am at the end of my rope and i don't know what to do or where to turn.
I have an 8 year old son in the second grade at a small (about 500 students) public school.
At the beginning of this school year (Sept. 9th to be exact), i went to eat lunch with my son.
After we had finished eating, my son asked me if he could have a peanut butter sandwich (the kids are allowed to have cheese sticks or peanut butter sandwiches if they are still hungry after they eat their lunch). I told my son that he should ask Mr. XXXX (Mr. XXXX is the art teacher at the school, but he's also a recess and lunch room monitor).
My son leaned into me and told me that he didn't want to ask Mr. XXXX because Mr. XXXX had told him that he couldn't have anymore peanut butter sandwiches the day before because he (Mr. XXXX) had noticed that my son had 'packed on the pounds'.
About that time, Mr. XXXX walked past the table we were sitting at and my son did ask if he could have a peanut butter sandwich.
Mr. XXXX said, "Yes, sit down!"
My son looked at Mr. XXXX confused and sat down.
Mr. XXXX continued walking up the length of table, turned around, came back, stuck his hands on his hips and asked my son, "I thought you were going to get a peanut butter sandwich?"
My son stated that he was, but he (Mr. XXXX) had told him to sit down.
Mr. XXXX then told my son to go ahead and get a sandwich, then he told ME that he had been keeping my son away from the peanut butter sandwiches and cheese sticks because he had noticed that my son had 'packed on the pounds over the summer and (he) didn't think that he needed anything else to eat after he was done eating his lunch'.
I didn't know what to say because i was stunned stupid by the fact that Mr. XXXX had the audacity to say such a thing in front of every one of my sons classmates.
For the last 10 minutes of the lunch period, the kids at the table we were at discussed how 'fat' my son was.
That afternoon, my son came home crying and told me that the kids had called him 'fatso' and 'lardbutt' amoung other things for the rest of the day.The following afternoon, my husband and i went in to Mr. XXXX's classroom to talk to him about how much his comment to our son had hurt his feelings and what the other kids had said to our son during the rest of the school day.
Mr. XXXX got defensive, told us that his comment didn't cause the other kids to call my son names, that the kids had probably always called our son those names, he had just never said anything to us about it (when we asked our son if any kids had ever called him 'fatso' or 'lardbutt' before, he told us no.)
Mr. XXXX then dismissed us and walked out of his classroom.
We then tried to talk to the principal about the situation both right after talking to Mr. XXXX and the following morning, but he was coaching a volleyball games and wasn't in the school either time.
The following afternoon, my son came home from school and told me that as he had walked past Mr. XXXX in the hall, Mr. XXXX told him to tie his shoes.
My son, who was going back to his 'homeroom' after P.E., told Mr. XXXX that he would tie his shoes when he got back to his classroom (the kids are not supposed to 'dwaddle' in the halls between classes) and kept walking.
My son told me that Mr. XXXX grabbed him by the back of his t-shirt, pulled him back and told him to tie his shoes "NOW!"
Then, during art class, Mr. XXXX shoved my son when he went up to show Mr. XXXX his finished assignment.
It took us a week, but my husband and i were finally able to talk to the principal.
The principal (i will call him Mr. D.), told us that we had 'misconstrued the situation'.
He said that he had heard what Mr. XXXX had 'supposedly' said in the lunch room and he thinks that Mr.XXXX has 'genuine concerns' about our son's weight.
He then rambled on that our son is 'overweight' and WE should be concerned too.
I told him that Mr. XXXX had made the comment to ME, so there wasn't any question about what Mr. XXXX had said and if Mr. XXXX had 'genuine concerns' about our son's weight, he should have contact my husband or i personally instead of bringing it up in front of the whole lunch room because that was just mean and cruel.
Mr. D. asked me if i really thought Mr. XXXX was trying to be mean.
I told him that yes, for whatever reason, Mr. XXXX was trying to be mean, otherwise why would he have said it?
Mr. D. then told my husband and i the Mr. XXXX isn't mean or cruel, he's just 'gruff'.
The situation has just deteriated since then.
Mr. XXXX has berated my son in class, calling him 'stupid' because my son didn't have his paper turned the right way.
During recess one day, my son was shoved off of the monkey bars and landed on his back, knocking the wind out of him.
When my son told Mr. XXXX about being shoved off of the bars, Mr. XXXX yelled at my son to 'shut up and quit tattling'.
Mr. XXXX continues to grab my son by the arm or shirt and demand that he tie his shoes.
And yesterday, my son came home to tell me that Mr. XXXX confronted him in the office while he (my son) was trying to get a cotton ball and told my son that he wasn't going to get anything until he tied his shoes. Mr. XXXX then dug his fingers into my sons shoulder.
My husband and i have told our son to stay away from Mr. XXXX as much as he can and to only to speak to him in art class when Mr. XXXX calls on him, but Mr. XXXX seems to go out of his way to get at my son.
My son hasn't come home from school with any red marks or bruises yet, but what if he does?
Last year, this teacher shoved a kid into a locker because he 'acted up' in class (this is not a rumor....i was a parent volunteer in the school last year and the kids told me about it, so i asked a teacher and the teacher confirmed that Mr. XXXX had indeed shoved the kid into a locker.)
What are our legal rights and is there anything that can be done about this teacher?
Do i call the police and file reports everytime this teacher grabs my son?
Please give me some general advice.
I don't know what to do anymore.
Talking to the teacher didn't do any good, talking to the principal didn't do any good and having had talked to the superintendent about a previous problem, i don't see how talking to him would do any good.
This situation has gotten so bad that my son doesn't even want to go to school anymore and my husband and i have talked about moving.
Well, my son has to go to school, so there isn't anyway around that.
As for us moving, we can't afford to just pack up and leave and even if we did, this teacher would just torture another kid.
Someone please help me.
Thank you

 

[Multimom]

Here's advice from a parent. First off your little boy is only 8 years old and as a mother I would be in that teacher's face and the principles office every day until this stops.

Document everything and every episode, take notes on what your child tells you and take them with you.

If it doesn't stop GO TO THE SCHOOL BOARD AND COMPLAIN AS LOUDLY AS YOU CAN. Also talk to other parents and see if their children are having problems with this teacher so that you have plenty of ammo for the school board.

If it still doesn't stop, take your documentation of the physical side of it (everytime he grabs your child, shoves your child, or cause physical pain to yoru child it doesn't have to leave marks) and head straight for the police station and file a report of assault by contact and disorderly conduct on the part of this teacher. No 8 year old child should be afraid to go to school and in my opinion that teacher should be removed.

Also, let the principle know if it doesn't stop immediately that you will go to the police and have him cited for disorderly conduct and assault by contact. If you throw that out, you may push the issue because then it becomes a police matter and not a school matter and no one associated with the school will be able to intervene.

Where my children and teachers or administration is conterned the only threat they have to be concerned is 5'1", blonde headed and I'm headed in their direction.

MOM STAND UP AND FIGHT BACK. Also if your child is struggling with his weight, that is a matter to be handled by you your husband and your child's pediatirican. Most doctors when it comes to an 8 year old will tell you to limit junk but not real food and involve your child in as many activities as possible outside of school.

Football, baseball, basketball, swimming, track, anything that keeps his body moble that he enjoys. This will help him drop the weight without feeling like an outcast. Also if he maintains this activity level, his natural growth patterns will resolve the issue with little or no change in his food volume.

Good luck and let the natural tiger mom instinct in you rise up and fight back. I'm on your side. Let me know what happens.

 

[Iowanmom]

Multimom....thank you, thank you, thank you!!
You will never know how much i appreciate your replying to my post.
Since this whole situation began, my husband and i have felt flat out helpless. We had gone in and talked to the teacher and principal (those conversations obviously didn't get us anywhere), i had talked to other parents...some told me that their child loved mr. xxxx and didn't have any problems with him, others told me that their child didn't like mr. xxxx, that mr. xxxx yelled to much and their child(ren) didn't like him because of it, but none of them said anything about mr. xxxx being abusive towards their child.
I did think about calling the police and filing a report, but my husband told me that he didn't think it would be a good idea because we would probably get one of the principals "friend" answer the call and it wouldn't go anywhere and our son would be treated even worse at school.
I also asked a lot of questions about who to report the incidents to from what i was told, the only people that we could report this to would be the school board, but you have to write to each member of the board, explaining what you want to discuss and why and get written permission and an alloted time to even be heard at the meetings. You can't just show up unannounced and expect to be heard.
I heard this from a teacher's assistant at the school.
Her son had been suspended from the school bus for a week because he had held a pair of scissors to the neck of a kid who was bullying him and told the kid he was going to stab him.
The bus driver caught this woman's son and suspended him. The woman told me that she had gone to the school board meeting to bring up the issue that the kid bullying her son should have been suspended too, but wasn't.
The woman told me that she wasn't allowed to speak at the meeting and was told that the boards policy was, if someone wanting to bring an issue up at a board meeting, they had to write each member, explain why they would like 'floor time' and the board would then decide if they had time at the meeting to hear you.
The woman just let the issue drop because she didn't think it was worth it to bring the issue up a month after the incident happened.
(Note: This was actually one of the things that my husband and i went to see the superintendent about because this woman's son wasn't the first one to threaten someone with a 'deadly weapon'. My son rides this bus and we went to talk to the superintendent about the safety of the bus. We even told the super that he could look at the video tapes from the bus' surveillance camera and see for himself what actually goes on on the bus. He told us that he would look into the situation himself. He actually did show up in the bus line the following morning and got on the bus with the kids to talk to them, but the situation didn't get solved. As a matter of fact, the kids then turned on me and started cussing me out everytime they saw me because i had 'ratted them out'. I even contacted the Iowa Department of Education about what was going on and was told that "they didn't have the authority to "make" the district to do anything, all they could do was "advise" the district that it COULD be held liable for any injuries a child receives while on school property" That is a direct quote from the email i received in reply.)
Anyway, i got off track.
So anyway, my husband and i didn't think that going in to see the superintendent would do any good.
My husband and i felt as if our hands were tied.
I had spent endless hours on the internet trying to find out what, if anything, i could do and didn't find anything until this past Monday when i happened about this website and one about public school parents.
Between your advice and the advice that i recieved the the public school parents web site, i now feel empowered.
One way or another, this situation WILL be resolved and my son will not have to endure any more torture by this teacher!
About my son's weight, i just had to take him to the doctor the 16th of December for an ear infection, so i know this is accurate weight. He weighed 108 pounds and was 4'9" tall at that time, so i think he had only gained maybe 5 pounds over the summer. (My oldest son (he's 11) weighs 105 pounds and is 5 feet even. My husband and i have never been able to figure out why our oldest son always looks tall and skinny while our youngest son looks short and heavy considering that there isn't that much height and weight difference between them.)
Sorry, i got off track again.
What i was trying to get at was i have talked to our doctor about my sons health when he had his physical before he started kindergarden (i thought he had a thyroid condition, because, i swear to God, he just seemed to have grown a foot and gained 30 pounds overnight.)
Anyway, our doctor told me that, yes, because there is overweight people in our various families, we would have to watch his weight and what he eats, but he told me that everyone should watch their weight and the food they consume.
In addition to that, our doctor also told me what you wrote, keep him active and mobile (NOT a problem, the kid is a bundle of energy and is always outside running around when the weather permits and i get both boys outside with me to shovel snow during the winter.)
The doctor also told me that our son will never be 'small' because neither my husband or i are.
I'm 5'71/2" tall and my weight fluctuates between 130 and 138 during the year, that isn't very tall, nor is that very heavy, but i am not tiny. I have 'big bones' and, let me put it this way, i look like a line backer if i wear any shirt with shoulder pads in it! My husband is 5'8" and weighs 225-230. He isn't very tall and to be honest, he could loose some weight, but he would be a big guy no matter what (he actually looks like he has football pads on his shoulders he's so broad).
Anyway, our doctor told me that no matter what, my son will never be small and will have to watch what he eats because he does have the predisposition to be heavy.
After mr. xxxx made the comment to my son about his 'packing on the pounds' i had to take my son in to the doctor for an ear infection and i brought up the subject with my doctor.
Our doctor told me the same thing he had before.....my son has the predispostion to be heavy because of genetics and we should watch what he eats, but at this point in time, he wasn't fat.
The fact of the matter is, is we do watch what our son eats.
We rarely have junk food in our house (although there is a chocolate cake sitting on the kitchen counter and vanilla ice cream in the freezer right now because our son just turned 8 on the 5th and they were for his birthday).
We don't eat out at fast food restaurants very much (when we do, it's usually Subway and my son in question has a turkey on white with cheese, although we do eat at McDonalds every once in a while.)
I'm sorry for rambling.
I started out this post to thank you for replying to my original post and i don't know why i have continued to ramble.
I'm sorry for babbling endlessly, i guess that i just wanted someone to vent my frustrations to.
Anyway, my husband, my son and i are going to go in to see the principal tomorrow morning and get a few things laid out.(We tried to talk to him this morning, but he is coaching a wrestling meet. He does way more coaching...basketball, volleyball, wresting....than he does 'principaling')
Between the advice that you gave me and the advice i got from the public school parents web site, we are going to let our son tell him what has happened over the last couple of days (mr. xxxx confronted my son in the hall again yesterday) and then we are going to ask him what he is going to do about.
No matter what he says, we are going to tell him that we are NOT going to have our son terrorized by mr. xxxx anymore and he, the superintendent of the school, the districts contact person who handles reports on teacher misconduct and the states contact person who handles reports on teacher misconduct are going to receive copies of a letter laying out every incident that has taken place between my son and mr. xxxx.
My husband said last night that one way or another, even if he has to personally beat the crap out of mr. xxxx, the situation is going to be resolved and mr. xxxx will leave our son alone.
Anyway, thanks again Multimom (and anyone else) for reading and replying to my post.

 

[Multimom]

Iowanmom:

No one understands the sever defensive nature of mother better than another mother who had gone up against the establishement for her child.

You need to confront Mr. X and the principle and tell them you simply don't believe their side of the story.

A nice way of calling them liars LOL.

Your son has the right to go to school and not be terrorized by an adult. If it continues you can also threaten to take your child out of the school and put him in private school or homeschool him and let them know you won't stand for it.

Going to the police should be still considered no matter whose buddy is whose. If they refuse to take a report you can go over their heads to the County Sherriff.

If need be talk loudly and often about this teacher and let others know what he is capable of so that someone else will watch him too.

I would also if possible take your son off the school bus. I hate buses and mine don't ride unless I'm in a real bind (only 3 times so far this year).

Hugs and keep up the fight.

If you would like to contact me personally let me know and I'll send you my e-mail address!!!

 

[Iowanmom]

Abusive teacher

Multimom:

Thanks again for your replying to my posts.
I'm sorry that i didn't get back to you sooner, but the hard drive on our computer died and we just got it back up and running.
Well, we had a meeting with the principal (Mr. D.)on Thursday the 9th.
My husband couldn't make it, so i took my mom in with us so she could be a witness to what was said.
Now, i know that this is only one side of the story and i am abbreviating it, but here goes.
I had my son tell Mr. D everything that had been going on between him and Mr. X.
Mr. D made the same statements that he made before: Mr. X isn't mean or cruel, he's just "gruff", that he had talked to Mr. X about the "packed on the pounds" comments and he thought that situation had been resolved.
Mr. D then went so far as to tell me that if Mr. X had grabbed my son, he was doing what he called a "necessary grab".
He defined a "necessary grab" as when a teacher sees one child draw back his fist to hit another child. The teacher can grab the arm, hand, wrist of the child who has his fist drawn back.
When i brought up the fact that my son didn't have his fist drawn back to hit another child, he just had his shoes untied, Mr. D told us that my son was probably ignoring Mr. X and explained that, if a child ignores a teacher, the teacher can do a "necessary grab" in that situation too and then told me that i would grab my son if he ignored me too.
When i tried to tell him that i wouldn't do that, he basically called me a liar. ("You would too! You would not want to be ignored!" he told me.)
At one point during the meeting, my son yelled out, "I just want Mr. X to stop!"
I agreed and told Mr. D that i didn't give a rat's butt whether Mr. X liked my son or not or flat out hated his guts, i just wanted Mr. X to quit terrorizing him and if this meeting didn't stop it, he, the superintendent, the school board, and the districts and states investigators into teacher misconduct would be receiving complaint letters and if that didn't stop it, my husband and i would be contacting a lawyer to find out what our legal rights were because we had had enough of the situation.
It had come to the point were Mr. X was grabbing my son on a daily basis, my son didn't want to come to school anymore, and it was bullsh**!
I admit, i did not handle the meeting well. I lost my temper a couple of times and i should not have done that. There's no excuse for it, but i got so sick and tired of this man verbally patting me on the head, "Now Jane. Do you REALLY believe that Mr. X is mean? Do you REALLY believe that Mr. X was trying to be cruel to John when he made that comment?" and basically telling us that what Mr. X had been doing to my son was perfectly okay that i blew.
Anyway, Mr. D suggested that we (my son, my husband and i) get together for a meeting with him and Mr. X to "work the situation out".
I wasn't sure if meeting with Mr. X was the right thing to do or not, but i agreed to it and the meeting was set up for the following day.
My husband, son, and i walked in to find Mr. X already seated in the teacher's lounge and he barely said a word except to argue with my son over this band aid incident (Why it was brought up, i don't know, but my son said he had to ask four times for a band aid and Mr. X said it was only three) and to "explain" to our son and us why he has shoved him (Mr. X. explained that he doesn't hug older kids because it looks improper and he had shoved my son away from him because he had tried to hug him. Okay, i can understand that, but my son looked Mr. X in the eye and denied trying to hug him and told him that he had been trying to show him the drawing that he was supposed to show him when Mr. X had shoved him).
Mr. D then took over talking and told us that Mr. X, as he had expected, had been shocked and surprised by our son's accusations. He told us that Mr. X had told him that he had been keeping his distance from our son since he had made the "packed on the pounds" comment to him in Sept. He then went on to explain that he believes that everything that has been going on boils down to the comment and he told us that our son was probably more hurt by the comment than he even knew and he has been over reacting to everything that Mr. X has said and done to him since then.
Mr. D explained to our son what over reacting meant.
Our son shook his head and told Mr. D, "I didn't over react to anything!"
Mr. D told our son that he didn't think that he was lying and he wasn't saying that he was, but he didn't think that things were as bad as our son thought they were. He then suggested that to avoid any other further "confusion", Mr. X would start keeping a "daily journal" on our son. If Mr. X had any problems with our son, he would write down what the problem was, then send our son and the "journal" down to him.
Mr. D would then write a comment and our son would bring the "journal" home for my husband and i to read and discuss with our son and then we could write a comment back and then send it back to school with our son the following day.
His example was: say Mr. X has to tell our son to quiet down in class three times. Mr. X would then write down that he had to tell him to be quiet three times then send our son and the journal to Mr. D. Our son would then have to tell Mr. D what he had been doing and Mr. D would then write a comment.
My husband looked Mr. X in the eye and told him that we would try it. We wanted the situation resolved and keeping the journal had better do it!
Before we left, i told both Mr. D and Mr. X that IF we had over reacted to the situation, i was sorry, but there was obviously a problem between our son and Mr. X and something needed to be done about it.
Mr. X told me that we should only believe 50% of what our son told us, then he turned around and walked out the door.
My husband was, to put it mildly, mad at me.
He told me that i shouldn't have apologized. He said that he didn't think that our son had over reacted to anything.
He said that he "didn't give a da**ed what anyone said about Mr. X, the man was an a**hole and he thinks that he can get away with anything that he wants to and the meeting proved it."
Later on, after he had calmed down a bit, my husband said that he still didn't think that i shouldn't have apologized, but one of us needed to so that the situation could be resolved. He said that Mr. X should have been the one to do the apologizing and he should have done it back in September after he made the comment that he shouldn't have made in the first place.
My husband also brought up that this journal could follow our son throughout his academic carreer and we shouldn't have agreed to it.
Well, i don't want the journal to hang over my sons head for the next 10 years and i don't know if it is going to do any good, but i don't want Mr. X to continue grabbing my son every time he turns around for the rest of this year.
I have been hoping that the meetings that we had took care of the situation. (My husband said that if it didn't, i would be bailing him out of jail because the next time Mr. X laid one finger on our son, he was going to meet him at his car after school and beat the living daylights out of him.)
It's been a week and so far Mr. X has left my son alone and the journal hasn't been sent home.
Well, i had better go so i can start dinner.
Thanks for "listening" to me and for the advice multimom.

 

[Multimom]

I was glad to listen and respond. If you want to vent further, let me know.

Also, I dispise people who give me the "pat on the head" response.

Our middle school principle did that once and I said, "Mr. S. I'm not an idiot and as I sit here talking I know you're thinking 'what can I do to get this woman out of my office.'

I also told him, don't expect for this to be the last of this and that if it continued I'd seek every legal recourse available to me.

Post here if you want to talk again.

 

[louielouii]

mr. x

if it happens again I would wait for mr.x after school and tell him if it ever happened again it would be the last thing he ever did. schools out the teacher let the monkeys out .there is no excuse for a grown man to pick on an eight year old child.

 

[failenn216]

I agree with Multimom! Especially about going to the police. This is abuse and sounds like assault. No child, or parent, should have to suffer that treatment from a teacher.

A letter to the teacher, indicating your intent to press criminal charges, cc'd to the Superintendent/Bd of Ed., should be enough to scare this bully off!

 

[DagnyChan]

There's not a lot than can be said that hasn't already been said, but if no other course of action seems to bring any results for you and your son, perhaps this would make a good personal interest story for the media in your area... I think that you should take whatever actions necessary (ECXEPT physical abuse!) to end this situation, and that means getting that teacher out of education! He obviously shouldn't be working with children; let him be a debt collector or something (no offense to anyone out there)! I'm sure there are plenty of jobs out there where he wouldn't have the opportunity to f*** with a kid's self-esteem. That's a major issue.
Check out a book on advertising for non-profits from your library, and it will nost likely have a section on how to write an effective press release. Get the people behind you on this!

 

[anastasia scrip]

Terrible

Don't waste your time with the schoolboard file a complaint at the state department of education and then start calling every radio station and local news channels to get your story out sounds to me like the principal should be removed too!

 

[scoobet]

Go get this teacher!
Picking on an 8yr old - I can beleive it. Get this guy on tape or something.

Lets face it some people are just not teacher material. This guy sounds like an idiot.

You said its a small school - any other teachers for his grade that you could switch class rooms.

 

[busylady45]

Just be careful when you go to the school. I would suggest always taking someone else with you for a witness. I went to our school to report abuse that I witnessed by a bus driver, when they refused to do anything about it, I told them I would come up there with a video camera and record what happened on about a daily basis. The next thing I knew I got a letter from the school's lawyer, saying that I had been to the school causing a disturbance, cursing and yelling and grabbing a student, none of which happened, and I was no longer allowed on school property or I would be arrested. Small towns have their own little ways.

 

[Iowanmom]

Thank you!

I'm sorry that this is so delayed, but I would like to thank everyone who replied to my post about the abusive teacher that my son had to deal with.
I really appreciate all of the advice that you all have given me.
Since our meeting with Mr. X and the Principal in Jan., we haven't had any more problems with Mr. X.
That "journal" that Mr. X was going to send home with my son if there were any problems, hasn't been sent home once and Mr. X even gave my son an Excellent for his classroom conduct grade (I just about fell out of my chair when I saw, then I started to wonder if the E wasn't a typo.)
I just don't trust the man as far as I can throw him and I keep waiting for the whole mess to start all over again and hoping that it doesn't.
You all are right, this man, as well as a few other members of this school's staff, shouldn't be allowed to teach my children, or any one else's for that matter.
My question is why are they allowed to?
I know that this particular teacher shoved a kid up against a locker last year (this happened on one of the days I volunteered at the school).
There's another teacher who actually lost his job when he shoved a kid into a radiator two years ago, yet the school rehired him the following year to teach music to elementary kids (my oldest son was in the fourth grade at the time and witnessed what happened.)
So, why do these abusive teachers still have jobs?

Oh, by the way, I did contact the state department of education.
I was told that they couldn't do anything, but I could write a letter to the states investigator into teacher misconduct, then send copies to the teacher in question, the principal and superintendent of the school, every member of the school's board of education and the districts investigator into teacher misconduct and document in the letter all of the incidences.
According to what I found out from the school's secretaries, the districts investigator into teacher misconduct is the principals and the superintendent.
How unbiased are they?

Anyway, thanks again to everyone who replied to my post.
I had reached the end of my rope and didn't know where to turn when I first wrote my initial post and you will never know how much it means to know that there are people who are out there willing to take the time to give advice or just to be a wall to wail to.
Thank You!