4 days ago
Baltimore County school fails to notify mother of brutal bullying incident
A Baltimore County mother is demanding accountability after she says her sixth-grade son was assaulted by two students at General John Stricker Middle School and that the school never informed her of the incident.
The woman, who asked not to be identified for safety reasons, said her son was supposed to be taking the MCAP state assessment on Tuesday when he was allegedly attacked in a hallway. Video of the incident, which has circulated on social media, appears to show the boy being knocked to the ground and later stomped on the head by another student after briefly being restrained by a staff member.
"I just want to go through the video and help my child," the mother said. "It's a bunch of adults just standing there. It makes me angry because of the amount of people who were standing around with no compassion."
She said she learned of the incident not from school officials but from her seventh-grade daughter, who also attends Stricker Middle. The daughter called her crying, she said.
"My stepdaughter calls me, I hear crying in the background," she recalled. "They said, 'He's on the floor and they couldn't get to him."
Denied entry into school
The mother said she rushed to the school, which is located less than a mile from her home, but was denied entry. She said a school resource officer confronted her outside.
"She threatened to kick me off the property," the mother said. "She started a countdown telling me to get off the property, and I said, 'I'm not going anywhere. My children are in the school — I need to know what's going on with my son."
The mother said she took her son to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a concussion. She claims that the school nurse and staff failed to call 911 after the assault.
Baltimore County Public Schools issued a statement in response to the incident:
"Any student that engages in disruptive and dangerous behavior — such as fighting or assaulting another student — would receive serious consequences aligned with the BCPS Student Handbook and Board policy. That behavior would not be tolerated at any BCPS school."
The mother said her son will not return to Stricker Middle School and that she has retained legal counsel.
