I'm amazed at what adults don't see (or perhaps don't want to see).
The whole situation was clearly torture for this one kid, but all the teachers could see was that the group was having fun.
I think a lot of these people are emotionally still in 6th grade themselves -- wanting to be liked by the popular kids, not wanting to have too much to do with the unpopular ones. I even wonder if they are deliberately blind to some of the bad behavior of the popular kids, because they don't want to lose favor with the group. Much easier to discipline the kid that nobody likes.
I don't think it's deliberate. I think it's an institutional tendency to take the path of least resistance. If a child isn't actively grabbing the spotlight-- for good or ill-- they fall into that invisible middle ground.
My daughter took part in an after school gymnastics program in first grade back in the day when I thought it might help. She mastered the art of always being in line for an activity, but never actually doing it. When I pointed this out to the coach, she protested that she'd seen N do cartwheels or somersaults several times. Well, no-- she'd seen her next up, then turned away for a moment to look at the other 20 kids, thereby missing N allowing a classmate to cut in line. It wasn't stupidity or malice-- just seeing what she expected to see.
