Schools will claim they have 0% tolerance of bullying but in reality it's often not the case.
IME, Zero tolerance generally only focuses on physical aggression and seems to ignore the verbal taunting, which can actually be much more painful. I know my DS considers someone calling him a name a significantly worse "crime" than if they had hit him. Ironically, it is the "zero tolerance" policy that resulted in YOUR child getting in trouble because the verbal assault is ignored over the physical. A similar incident happened to my DS last year when a kid was relentlessly taunting him. After a while, DS pinned him (he was taking wrestling at the time) and HE got detention. I for one thought his response demonstrated a lot of control: he wanted the kid to stop, he had walked away, the kid followed him, so he took steps to defend himself without actually injuring the other child. But it was "physical aggression" and the detention form listed "attention seeking" as the reason. I was livid!
I hope the school does a better job of monitoring things for your child from now on!
Last edited by LNEsMom; 09/20/11 10:21 AM.
