I'm writing this letter concerning Warsaw Community High School policies.
In the past week, I'm personally aware of three girls that attend the high school that have been expelled from school for the year. Two of these girls were suspended after being verbally bullied by another student. I am aware, for a fact, that one of these girls put up with a lot of verbal abuse from the same boy last year. The school was made aware of the issue then.
Well, needless to say, this boy pushed the girl, teasing her about her weight, once again, until she finally broke and her anger was out of control at the time. She has been suspended pending an administrators meeting. The reason told by the school to the student was because once she was teased and ridiculed about her weight, she lost her temper and said the "F" word several times. After this girl left the class yesterday, the same boy took his meanness and directed it at another girl, who actually physically pushed this boy down. She was suspended for five days.
My first concern would be: If this boy was involved with making another student that angry as to cause a scene with her, why was he left in the class to be allowed to pick on another student? I would've thought maybe he should've went to the office with the girl who lost her temper since he was verbally bullying her.
Is Warsaw Community High School not aware of the fact that most of all high and college tragedies, such as Columbine High School; Puduka, Ky.; and several other smaller tragedies, all stemmed from verbal bullying? In the student handbook, it says that Warsaw Community High School has a zero tolerance for bullying. I guess that is just in effect for physical, not verbal.
I do hope in the near future that Warsaw comes to realize that verbal bullying will cause a larger scale of problems.
Last of all, I want to ask to address the option of sending students to the Alternative Learning Center, which is located in Lakeview MIddle School. This option has become so very useful to WCS that it's crazy. The ALC was set up for adults needing education and children with severe emotional issues that delay learning. The Bowen Center is a large part of the school.
Warsaw school system has adopted ALC as a place to send any student who is kicked out. ALC is a great program, but students are not being taught by a teacher. The people in charge of classes for middle- and high-school-aged students are not teachers, they do not have teaching degrees. They are counselors through the Bowen Center, they are homework helpers. It is not fair for our school systems to keep overloading the counselors that work at ALC with children who are there for 12 weeks or more, and actually need teachers for that long of a period.
Maybe Warsaw Community School System should volunteer one of their teachers to ALC since so very many students attend on a yearly basis for trimesters or longer. Also, students can only go to ALC under certain guidelines. One student that was expelled last week for the rest of the year was turned down by ALC because she's not "high risk," but she cannot go to Warsaw School either. I hope soon WCS comes up with an alternative school for students that are being expelled for small or provoked reasons.
Tami Hartman
Warsaw, via e-mail
Editor's Note: This letter was edited to conform more closely to the 500-word limit state in out Letters Policy.
