Monday, December 22, 2008

When the School Doesn't Stop the Bullies

My 10 year old son currently goes to Copper Cliff Public School in Copper Cliff, Ontario. This school is part of the Rainbow School District. Copper Cliff is a quaint community of approximately 2700 families that live in the outskirts of the City of Greater Sudbury. CCPS is a beautiful old high school, rich in history, that now serves elementary students with grand local park that lays at the end of the school yard. It sounds like an ideal setting to send your child to school to, and it would be, if your child wasn't terrified to walk to school and have the crap beat out of him.
Bullies are a part of life, but when the school turns a blind eye to something that is happening on their watch, it does not just become a part of life, it becomes a full time job advocating on your child's behalf only to fall on deaf ears. I know that speaking to some parents within Copper Cliff, this is not just a problem that we as a family have been dealing with. It appears that there is a common denominator within the school's administration for the lack of action for this problem.
The provincial government of Ontario has invested heavily and wisely into a program called the Safe School Action Team. It is a way of acknowledging the seriousness of bullying and the emotional damage that it causes to our children. The government has created a mandate within the Provincial Code of Conduct on how to discipline children that resort to bullying. Problem in Copper Cliff- mandate is printed in the Rainbow District P & P but it is not worth the paper it is written on as it is not being upheld.