Those nasty bullies who tormented an innocent 68-year-old school bus monitor with comments about her weight, sexual acts and family members killing themselves, finally got their due. A one-year suspension from school, time in some type of rehab facility and community service with the elderly.
A one-year suspension is huge. It seems just and appropriate for a bullying offense. But why does it still not feel like it's enough to pay for what they said and how they actually did it? Maybe because it's not. Once you say such terrible, mean, and hurtful things as they did, you can never take them back or make good on them, no matter how harsh the punishment.
Those taunts will live on the Internet and in the heart of poor Karen Klein forever, no matter how many vacations she gets to take or how many days those boys miss school.
The four middle-schoolers apparently waived their right to a hearing. After a week of talking about the incident, which went viral around the world, the school district near Rochester, New York, issued a statement last night on how to deal with the deviants.
In addition to the suspension and community service work, the boys have to go through a bullying prevention program. Usually, being suspended (or expelled) from school does not mean they miss a grade, it just means they attend an alternative type school where they are still required to complete classwork requirements to be able to keep on track with their current grade. But in many districts, it's not nearly the equivalent of instruction they get while attending regular school, and they miss out on all the social and extra-curricular activities as well. So yeah, it's a real blow to a kid.
But whether the boys will "learn their lesson" from this punishment is unclear. It still doesn't seem to bridge to the larger crime of human decency and respect. Nothing really does. There just is no appropriate punishment for what those boys did to Mrs. Klein ("official" punishment, that is).
Do you think the boys got the punishment they deserved?
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Comments 72
I think people can only blame themselves. They were outcrying for the school to severely punish them and even calling for their deaths and now everyone is like "Now that's a littletoo far..."
Ms. Klein is not a child in need of "protection" from mean mean 13 year olds. She was supposed to be the one preventing this sort of behavior, and instead, she allowed it to continue. The result was that the kids learned to escalate their behavior instead of showing some respect for adults, she got a windfall (nice to get $600,000 for not doing your job) and the kids' lives are going to be upended for a year.
And if anyone thinks I am "blaming the victim" -- she's not a " victim", she's an incompetent childcare worker. If she had sat there while those boys taunted another child, she would have been fired.
I have to say that suspension isn't going to really hurt them until graduation comes along and they are not able to graduate with their class.Right now, guaranteed they are celebrating the fact that they don't have to go to school next year. You know what might be better? Having someone follow these kids around making fun of them like they did to that poor bus monitor. Figure out what makes these kids feel insecure and have at em! They will learn much faster that way, then they will with suspension. Or maybe they should have been charged with assault or something(one of them did start poking her) and thrown in juvi for a few months.