Katy ISD: Intimidation for information
If you think that your child will have reasonable protection from threats and intimidation while at school, think again. It is happening all the time, behind closed doors, and the perpetrators are administrators, not students. The following two incidents reveal the tip of the iceberg.
While investigating drawings on the high school walls, my son's principal called him to the office several times. Initially, this principal accused him of being the perpetrator. As this was obviously not the case, my son was then pressured to identify a culprit. Consistently, he maintained that he had nothing to do with the drawing, did not see who did it, and would never engage in speculation where disciplinary consequences were involved. Additionally, he was not at school on the day the incident was alleged to have occurred! This administrator's reaction? He threatened to have my son charged with a FELONY as an accessory to destruction of government property for withholding information. That my son had no direct knowledge of the incident was of no importance to this principal. He had an objective - to find a culprit; and if threats and intimidation were the means employed, so be it. The questioning ceased only after a teacher intervened on my son's behalf to stop the harassment.
This was not our first encounter with administrative zealots who choose inappropriate methods to resolve "issues"
During my son's junior year, an incident occurred between two female students on a Saturday night. The incident allegedly involved intimidating and/or threatening phone calls. On Monday morning, when the recipient of these phone calls informed her principal of the incident, the principal asked this student to give her the name of anyone she spoke to about it. Well, my son, knew both girls. He approached the recipient of the phone calls in the hallway that day, inquired about the incident, asked if she was okay and inquired as to whether or not she and her parents would press charges. The conversation, according to my son, lasted about one minute as they were changing classes. As requested, this girl subsequently related the exchange to her principal. The result? The principal called both the Katy ISD and Fort Bend police to report that my son had threatened and harassed this student!. Over the next two weeks, my son was hauled out of class on two separate occasions; first by Katy ISD police and then by Fort Bend detectives investigating his threats! My son adamantly stuck to the details of his conversation each time. Note that no attempt was made to contact me on either occasion; a direct violation of KISD policy. Not only was I outraged at the lack of notice, and the! tactics my son was subjected to, so was this girl's mother. She viewed this administrator's actions as so completely inappropriate that she found my number and called me after learning of my son's ordeal. She apologized for the school's actions, assured me that my son had not threatened or harassed her daughter in any way and confirmed my son's account of the conversation. She had already contacted the high school to put an end to the questioning. We agreed that, In fact, there had been a threatening and intimidating incident at school. The victim was my son, the perpetrator was an administrator, and there were no consequences, not even an apology.
My son did nothing wrong in either case, yet he was threatened and harassed. His word meant nothing as he was repeatedly questioned. He was guilty until he could prove his innocence, even when the "incident" was fabricated by an administrator. He suffered panic attacks as a result and no one cared. You call this tough adherence to Zero Tolerance policies? I call this Nazi Germany. And I have Zero Tolerance for such antics by the very people who are responsible for the education of our children, God help us if these are the lessons our children learn.
Another Katy Mom
