This is probably one of the biggest reasons that we are staying in our private school instead of going into a larger public school setting, even though I think that the public school would do a decent job academically. At our school, there is NO WAY that this would happen. Lack of bullying and the expectations of the school regarding student interaction is so ingrained into the school day that it just wouldn't occur. If it DID occur, it would be seen and squelched immediately by the supervising adults. If it wasn't witnessed, it is so well understood that certain behaviors are not okay, and that it's okay to let an adult know what happened, that he would already have been speaking to a teacher. Not as a "tattle", but because it is unacceptable behavior.
Good luck to your son. I was never physically bullied, but I was picked on quite a bit as a kid; my two brothers, who have less social graces than I do (i.e., one has Aspergers (undiagnosed 40 years ago except for being a "quirky kid", and the other is just sort of physically ineffectual) were picked on a bit more. That environment is not present at all at the school we are at now.
