“I’m scared to go back to school,” began the statement that one seventh grade student wrote to Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School.
The statement came after she suffered months of bullying.
“I do not feel safe. My legs feel like jello. I do not trust anybody,” the student told school officials in a document obtained by 7 Investigates.
Steve and Cheri said it was very hard to watch their daughter experience this and feel helpless.
“It’s extremely heartbreaking to the parents,” Steve admitted.
They told 7 Investigates that they reported their daughter’s bullying to the school for months during the 2022-23 school year. Steve and Cheri said school officials did little to address it.
“They would make fun of her in the cafeteria, hold fist punches up to her, poke her in the hallway, say things to her… write stuff in the bathrooms,” Cheri recalled.
The constant incidents turned their daughter fearful and withdrawn.
“When it’s consistent and there’s no discipline with it, it’s very hard to just sit back and do nothing,” the Melrose parents said.
Looking for action, they decided to file a complaint with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). That complaint spurred an investigation that found Melrose Public Schools failed to comply with state law and its bullying prevention plan “by failing to promptly investigate allegations of bullying.” The district was ordered to provide training to its middle school staff.
The Melrose district investigated and confirmed the incidents were classified as bullying. School officials created a safety plan that included keeping the bully away from their daughter.
Based on this promise, their daughter returned to class for the 2023-24 school year.
However, Steve and Cheri said the plan failed to keep the bully from bothering their daughter at lunch and in the hallways.
“The second day of school and they failed to keep her away from the bully,” Cheri recalled.
That was the final straw for the family. They decided to keep their daughter home.
“How many parents are going to let their kid be in harm’s way more than once?” Steve questioned.
Melrose Public Schools declined to comment on the specific case, citing the need to protect the privacy of their students.
Steve and Cheri are not the only parents who have voiced frustration over the middle school’s handling of bullying.
7 Investigates found DESE has received several complaints related to bullying at Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School over the last two school years. One family also filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education.
“It sounds dramatic but it’s actually traumatizing. It’s hard to think back on what this was like day to day. It was like screaming in a different language and nothing is getting through,” said Paula, another Melrose parent. Her son, Peter, was bullied for months at the Melrose middle school.
“They were harassing me and I was really really embarrassed… it was just like ridiculous how I felt,” Peter said. “I was extremely embarrassed.”
Peter said the bullying started last fall when he was a 7th-grader at Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School.
“I was trying to ignore it and stuff but I just couldn’t. It was just too annoying,” Peter said. “My grades were plummeting. I was really trying my hardest but I was doing so bad.”
He was kicked, punched, hit on the head, and called names. The school investigated the attacks and classified them as bullying.
“When the year was over I was like, ‘Thank God this year is over,’” Peter said.
But the bullies’ attacks followed him outside of school this summer and escalated into violent threats online.
Days before the start of eighth grade Peter received messages from his bullies threatening to shoot him and beat him up. One student repeatedly told Peter to kill himself and called him names.
Peter begged them to stop.
“It’s hard to describe how it feels as a parent to see words like that used towards your child. I would say it rips your soul out is probably the best thing I could say,” Paula remembered.
The family took their concerns to the police and the school. The day before school started, the principal and the family agreed to a safety plan that included adjusting schedules so none of Peter’s bullies would be in class with him.
Peter returned to school and within the first week discovered he shared two classes with the bullies.
“It just made me really mad… I was just really… disappointed in the school and still am,” Peter said. “I just don’t think they really cared for my feelings.”
In an email to the family, the principal admitted the “failure” and called it “unacceptable.” The school scrambled to fix the mistakes but for Peter and his family, the damage was done.
Paula said further attempts to keep Peter away from the bullies left him isolated and disrupted his learning. They also decided to pull Peter from the middle school.
“There is no transparency about anything. There is no opportunity to sit down with the other family or guardian or anything to just get on the same page. It’s anonymous, it’s formalized, it’s this ridiculous procedure that you have to follow and when it’s not working of course you feel completely and utterly helpless and it’s your child,” Paula said.
Dr. Elizabeth Englander is the executive director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center (MARC). She works with families and schools across the country to prevent bullying. She regularly hears from parents who feel a similar frustration. Englander said a lot of times families’ frustrations stem from schools’ inability to be fully transparent about their actions and the discipline involving the bullies.
“This is very, very frustrating but I do think it is very important to understand that schools are just following the law that’s why they are doing this,” Englander said. “They can’t tell you anything about the child who has been accused of bullying. They can’t tell you what is going on there, they can’t tell you what the investigation shows, they can’t tell you what the consequences were; all of that is hidden.”
This lack of information can leave parents feeling helpless.
“There’s still plenty of work to be done, there’s no doubt about it. I think you do see that when you talk to parents who are still frustrated and still maybe not realize how the system works and why they aren’t being given any information,” Englander said.
She said parents can make sure schools are following the law by asking the school about training and anti-bullying programs for kids. She said she’s found most schools are taking these complaints seriously. If parents believe their district is not, they can file a complaint with the state.
DESE received 291 complaints related to bullying the last school year; a 14% increase from the year before.
Steve and Cheri’s daughter spent 7th grade getting tutored at home. This fall the family got a restraining order against the bully. Their daughter started at a new district and is thriving.
They hope the change of schools will continue to help their daughter but they wish it didn’t have to come to this.
“I just feel like they failed. They failed a family that lives here,” Cheri said.
Peter also transferred schools and is enjoying a fresh start.
“It’s awesome. I’m really glad I went there because I think if I kept going to that school my life would just be miserable,” he said.
A misery, Paula hopes other kids can be saved from if Melrose learns from its mistakes.
“Part of me just wants to say, ‘We’re done, that’s it.’ But the idea that there are other kids coming up into that school and that some other child could be dealing with this it’s just not OK. I think the city just needs to listen and they are not so far and I just think it is unacceptable,” she said.
Melrose Public Schools superintendent told 7 Investigates it takes “all allegations of bullying and harassment seriously” and the district is “committed to working to eradicate bullying.” The district pointed to its “robust policies” related to bullying and said trained administrators fully investigate every bullying allegation.
School officials declined to speak on camera or address either student’s situation directly.
Parents can file complaints with DESE related to bullying within any school here: https://www.doe.mass.edu/prs/
Additional information and resources around bullying can be found here: https://www.doe.mass.edu/sfs/bullying/
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