I explained that when their daughters were ready to convince me that things are going to be different, they should call me to set up an appointment. I told them I would let their daughters return to school when I knew that things would be different. That meant they needed to come to school and pick them up as soon as they could. I talked to the girls’ mothers and told each of them that I was going to suspend her daughter. I told her that I would check in with Johnny and make sure he knows that I will keep him safe here. I called Johnny’s home and got his mother on the phone. Then, I talked with Johnny whose story corroborated the teacher’s report, though in his humiliation he was not enthusiastic to talk about it. I told them this was serious and that I still had to consider what I would do about it and sent them back to class. Even though each of the girls had her own version, each minimizing her role in the affair, none of them took responsibility for the incident. The next morning, I talked with the students, one at a time, in my office. It hit him in the chest and spilled banana-strawberry slush all down his front. They mocked him for a while and then, as the humiliations built to a crescendo, one of the girls threw her half-finished smoothie. Sitting there on the bench he must have been slouched like a turtle with its arms and legs in.īy all accounts, including one from a teacher who watched the episode from the other side of the avenue, the girls approached the bench, told Johnny to get up because they wanted to sit on the bench. He walked with his head down looking at his feet with his shoulders pulled over him like a turtle shell. One afternoon, at the bus stop across the street from school they approached Johnny, a sixth grader who wasn’t so good with other people. As you can imagine, that didn’t change anything. We could rarely catch them in a teachable moment or a punishable act. Teachers knew it was happening, but the girls were clever and slippery. But in eighth grade, when they were together, they turned themselves into a gang that was mean to other kids with increasing frequency and ferocity. They were all new to my school in the seventh grade and had come from different schools. Once there were three little girls, Kathy, Lilly and Susan.
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