Disturbing thing happened on my 7th grade son's school bus ride home today
I got a call from the asst director at his after care that as he and his friend were getting off the bus today, the were talking about a 'special kid' who was touching them inappropriately, trying to give people lap dances, and tried to pull some other kids pants down and do things to him. The daycare called Child Protective Services to see if this was a reportable incident. CPS told them it wasn't reportable since it was kid vs kid. They were told it was only reportable to the school, the bus company and maybe the police department, depending on how far the aggressive kid took the actions.
My husband and I, plus the parents of my son's friend, have been notified and I called the school dean of students right away. She printed off the bus roster and said there is no 'special kid' (assuming my son and his friend mean special ed kid) on the bus, but there is a kid who pretends to try to avoid getting into trouble. She will take written statements from both my son and my son's friend, as well as the daycare asst director tomorrow AND she's going to call the other kids from the bus down to get statements from all of them about what's been going on.
I will say, she got right back to me even though I left her a message at 4:05. The one thing that troubled me is that when the asst. director asked my son "why didn't you report this?". My son said "I'm just a twig. Who would listen to me?" I feel responsible for that because we were all joking around this weekend about how tall he's grown (taller than me or his sister) and we need to beef him up so he won't be quite so skinny - like a twig. I don't want him feeling that way, and the director and dean of students are trusted people - people he should trust and people that we've known many years and trust. He should have gone to them at the first sign of anything like this.
Hubby and I will have to talk to our son tonight and let him know that the school wants to take a statement from him. I just want to listen right now though, because I want his statement tomorrow to be in his words.
= new reply since forum marked as read
verbalize what happened on the bus. That would have been a shock to an adult riding a bus. Don't beat yourself up about calling him a "twig". That was just his way of saying he's small/young. I'm sure you'll find a way to help him find his own voice.
