One parent’s social media post grew into a meeting with the Bellevue Schools Superintendent to talk about bullying.
Mandy Rody-Wickwitre said her 10-year-old son was being bullied, when he fought back and was later punished at Avery Elementary School.
“This kid pushed my son and my son pushed him back, and it turned into a fist fight,” she said.
The fight happened after a basketball game turned south.
The kids involved in the fight continued to bully her son through the weekend and hacked into his YouTube account.
“They did some pretty nasty things on there, saying my son does stuff to other little boys.” she added.
In light of what was happening to her son, and how she felt it was being handled by the school, she wanted to meet with Superintendent Jeff Rippe.
“I feel like this is what we need to do as a school district, partner with our parents, partner with other stake holders to come up with solutions,” said Rippe.
Rippe allowed the meeting and even allowed about a dozen other parents to come to the meeting to discuss the bullying problem.
The meeting lasted about 90 minutes and the parents could ask questions, voice concerns, and think of the solutions.
“Towards the end of the meeting, we talked a lot about some different avenues to try and be positive and I think that was very beneficial,” said local parent Lori Julshof.
“I think there were ideas from other school districts with the peers for a student to go and identify a certain student in that building they can talk to,” said Rippe.
“I think it had its highs and its lows, I think a lot of solutions we threw out there were shot immediately,” added Rody-Wickwire.
Rody-Wickwire said it was amazing that so many people turned out for the meeting, and through it, a new “Anti-Bullying Committee” was formed.
“Hopefully we can keep going with it and make things, get these solutions and put them into place and not just talk about them,” she said.
One discussion of the meeting was making sure kids, parents, and teachers know where to report bullying or other situations.
