Sunapee Parents Unhappy With Response to Cyberbullying
Sunapee — More than 60 people attended a public forum on bullying at a Sunapee School Board meeting last month to discuss what they say is the district’s poor response to previous complaints.
Eight parents spoke out against district administrators who they say were often hostile and unhelpful while handling accusations of bullying, while school district officials countered that policies are followed and the number of reported cases is low.
Pam Richardson, one of the parents who spoke at the Nov. 4 board meeting, said on Thursday that her three children have attended and graduated from the Sunapee School District. One was involved in bullying on both ends: the child was accused of bullying in the lower grade levels and was bullied while in the middle high school, she said.
When a threat was made against her daughter’s life on social media, Richardson said, she brought her concerns to the school administration and was told they couldn’t investigate it because the threat was made on social media.
“There’s no reason why it shouldn’t have been addressed,” she said.
The state’s law on bullying was last updated in 2010 and classifies cyberbullying as bullying through electronic devices. In its policies, the school district includes cyberbullying as an act that it “reserves the right to address.”
Superintendent Russell Holden couldn’t speak to specific incidents when contacted on Thursday.
The same has happened to many students, and some parents have decided to leave the district rather than allow their children to continue being bullied or fight with the administration, Richardson said.
“We have issues and they’re issues that all schools have,” Richardson said. “We just need to address them as opposed to sweeping them under the carpet.”
Parent Ray Porter said tensions have been “bottled up” between administrators and parents for years. There are two issues he said other parents are angry about: bullying by the administration and a belief that bullying between students isn’t being addressed.
Porter, who was at the Nov. 4 meeting, said bullying from the district was highlighted by an exchange between high-schooler James O’Brien and the School Board.
O’Brien began telling the board about his experience being bullied when he was cut off by Chairman Shaun Carroll, according to a recording of the meeting provided by Porter. After calls of “shame on you” from the audience, O’Brien was allowed to continue.
He said bullying began in the sixth grade when a larger student picked on him and said “she was going to come to my house and shoot me with a gun.”
At that point, Holden asked Carroll to stop O’Brien, which he briefly did before allowing him to continue. Although it’s not clear on the tape, Porter said, the school district’s attorney intervened to allow O’Brien to continue speaking about being bullied again in the 10th grade and about the district’s lack of a response.
“I just wish we could do something about this bullying before it gets any worse,” O’Brien said at the meeting. “The last thing I want is other innocent students to get picked on by other kids.”
Porter said he feels like O’Brien was being bullied by the superintendent and the School Board chairman. He would like to see an apology given, but said none was offered at the board’s subsequent meeting on Dec. 2.
Porter isn’t the only parent to focus concerns specifically on Carroll and Holden. Richardson said she would like to see both step down.
Holden became superintendent in June 2013 after holding the assistant superintendent position in the Camden/Rockport School District in Maine and principal positions in the Lakes Region. Holden said it’s not for him to say whether the district has a bullying problem, but said there have been very few substantiated reports.
The district, which enrolled 428 students in September, sends bullying statistics to the state Department of Education annually as part of its schools’ safety surveys. According to the department, the district reported six instances of bullying and one instance of cyberbullying in the 2013-14 school year. Of those, three were found to be actual cases of bullying during investigations.
The reported numbers from the 2012-13 school year were similar, when the district reported seven instances of bullying and found four to be actual cases.
Under the district’s bullying policy, all instances of bullying are required to be reported to a school principal, who is required to conduct an investigation and report the incident to parents. The principal has five days to initiate the investigation and 10 school days to complete it, unless given more time by the superintendent.
Once a decision has been made, punishment for bullies can range between “admonishment” to out-of-school suspension and expulsion.
Carroll did not respond to several messages left at his office and home, nor emails on Thursday. Vice Chairman Paul Skarin declined to comment when reached by phone on Thursday.
During the Nov. 4 meeting, Carroll said the School Board sets policies and trusts Holden to implement them in the schools.
“If he’s not doing his job properly then he’s not going to have a job for long,” Carroll said in the audio recording.
Holden is the “end game” for many complaints, Carroll said, and people need to put their concerns in writing and meet with the administration before they can start a process of rectifying a problem.
But another Sunapee parent said in an interview that the process doesn’t work.
“None of those protocols are ever followed,” said Jody Manson, who had one child graduate from the district three years ago. She removed her other child from Sunapee schools because of bullying and now is paying tuition to another public school.
“There’s never paperwork filled out, never any consequences,” Mason said. “You’re lucky if you ever get a response to an email concerning any problems.”
In an interview on Thursday, Holden said the school district had its attorney attend the Nov. 4 meeting because of the concerns about how bullying complaints are reviewed.
“We’ve had some parents that have made some complaints about bullying in school” and that’s why it was important to invite the district’s attorney to review policies during the Nov. 4 meeting, Holden said.
He said bullying affects schools across the country, and Sunapee isn’t alone in working to provide a safe space for students to learn.
“I think Sunapee is a great school district,” Holden said. He pointed to the schools’ strong showing on the Smarter Balanced tests as proof.
Some people at the November meeting agreed with Holden and supported the district’s efforts.
Stephanie Larpenter, a 2009 Sunapee High graduate, said high school was a great experience for her because of the teachers and how they adapted to her needs as a student athlete.
“I think they did a great job and always had been since I’ve been here,” Larpenter said. “It was a very positive experience for me and created the person that I am today.”
Richardson isn’t so sure the school district is as good as it once was, though. She said there are great teachers in the classrooms but no longer feels the administrators are there for the children.
She said she would like Holden and Carroll to resign.
“I just want to feel good about the school system and I don’t,” she said.
