An Ellicott City couple is suing the HoCo Board of Ed and school system for ten million bucks because they claim their son suffered from “post traumatic stress disorder” after being bullied at Patapsco Middle School. According to this story by Erica L. Green in The Sun their son was “stabbed and struck with pencils, being slammed into lockers, acts of imprisonment and restraint, attacks and assaults with instruments that became weapons at the hands of the individual perpetrators.”
Sure sounds like the middle school I remember, only back then it was called junior high.
Without passing judgment on the merits of this individual case I’ll just say that, from my own personal experience, the HoCo school system approach to bullying is a fairly proactive one. In the three different HoCo schools that Peanut has attended so far, both teachers and administrators have been fairly responsive in addressing this issue.
On the other hand I do take issue with the scope of this legal action. I mean really, a ten million dollar federal lawsuit for bullying?
Isn’t that a bit excessive?
Apparently the parents, Peter and Cindy Bulgarino, have since placed the traumatized child in a Catholic school “where he is excelling” according to their attorney Phillip Sweitzer.
“But he said that the student's family still deserves justice, having had to pay medical and educational expenses as a result of the school system's alleged negligence.”
I didn’t think Catholic schools had gotten that expensive. Must be the therapists.
