An area middle school student suffered a long-term neck injury this school year because of bullies, his parents said.

Another collapsed and struggled to breathe after he was punched several times in the chest and on his arms, his parents said.

While most area schools say incidents of bullying are on the decline, officials say they take all reports seriously.

“Everybody expects their child to be very safe in school, and that’s what we want,” said James Monaco, superintendent of Aubrey schools, where parents of two middle school students reported that bullies injured their sons during this school year.

“Safety is our No. 1 concern, so we’re not taking this lightly.”

Both the Aubrey incidents resulted in police reports and Class C misdemeanor assault citations for four students — two in each case.

Experts say reports of bullying are increasing nationwide, but school leaders, parents and community members have increased their efforts to fight such malignant behavior.

Lake Dallas school officials reported no assaults against students during last school year, but Dawn Angove, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction at Lake Dallas school district, said that doesn’t mean bullying doesn’t occur.

“Just as in any grouping of people over time, bullying unfortunately does occur,” she said. “Our approach is and has always been to provide adequate supervision and intervention to prevent and/or correct these behaviors. It has also helped to raise student’s awareness about bullying. … The key is for students to know that both the adults and the other students are not accepting of the bullying behavior.”

Monaco said Aubrey school officials recently concluded an investigation of a reported injury at the middle school, but he would not say if it was related to bullying. He said the issue had become a personnel matter, but in order to protect students’ and employees’ privacy, neither he nor Principal Delore Jones would comment on it.

While saying the district is not perfect, he said, “I’m very proud of our schools.”

Injury that may never heal

Debra and Brett Hetrick recently pulled their two sons out of Aubrey Middle School to home-school them.

Their sons have experienced repeated bullying, they say, and the issue was not resolved, even after they spoke to administrators and complained.

Most important, their younger son received an injury to his neck that may never heal, they say.

In the gym during a physical education class, Debra Hetrick said, a couple of boys would repeatedly “horse-collar” her younger son around the neck and tackle him to the floor, something she said happened to other students too.

“Of significance is the fact that these incidents … were completely unprovoked,” said Debra Hetrick.

Her younger son “is not mouthy, nor is he a braggart; he is a usually happy, well-adjusted kid who tries to respect his authorities, obey the rules and get along with his classmates,” she said.

Brett Hetrick said the boy had been complaining about neck pains for a couple of weeks, and at first, he and his wife thought he was just trying to get out of his chores.

The full story of what had been going on at school came out after the last time he was tackled.

He was in so much pain that he couldn’t even turn his head.

So, his parents took him to be examined.

His neck is damaged, limiting his movement in that area, said  Robert Howell, chiropractor at A Family Chiropractic Clinic in Denton.

Howell said he would expect the sprain in the boy’s neck and shoulder to limit his activities, including participating in sports and playing saxophone.

Using the American Medical Association’s guide to ratings of permanent impairment, Howell determined that the muscle damage leaves the Hetricks’ son with a 25 percent impairment.

The damage to the boy’s neck may never heal, and injuries such as his have the potential to cause spinal cord damage, Howell said.

Although treatment won’t necessarily fix the problem, Howell feels treatments helps.

The Hetricks filed a police report on the incident, and Aubrey Police Chief Bryan Barrett confirmed that two students received citations for Class C misdemeanor assault.

As a result of their son’s injury, the Hetricks could have sought a charge with a higher penalty, but they say they are seeking remediation, not retaliation, and that’s why they agreed to a lesser charge.

The Hetricks admit they didn’t follow school district’s protocol.

They had several conversations with Jones, the principal, and Brett Hetrick left the last meeting with Jones slightly appeased, he said, because he finally heard something from her that might make a difference.

They still pulled their boys out of the school district because the damage was already done, they say.

Other people have followed protocol with no resolution, they say, adding that a change needs to be made.

Taking it seriously

Monaco said the student resource officers and counselors are trained to work with students involved with bullying issues and that district officials want to be as “accountable as anybody.”

“We deal with somebody’s most prized possessions, and we take it very seriously,” said Monaco.

Doris Coy, a former professor at the University of North Texas who is now at Northern Kentucky University, has spent her career in counseling and published a book that provides lesson plans to teachers and counselors focusing on bullying.

She said her new book, coming out in May, will provide teaching professionals with activities that address bullying.

Bullying has increased across the nation, Coy said, but more positive action has taken place to combat it.

Self-esteem issues and the need for power over others are some of the problems behind bullying, she said.

Coy gave some signs that children are being bullied:

* They come home hungry because they gave their money to someone else.

* Their clothes are in disarray or dirty.

* They have bodily injuries.

* They are afraid to be involved with something when in the past it wasn’t a problem.

* They show signs of illness because they don’t want to do something.

Bullying can happen anywhere, in a church or at a community event, not just at school, Coy said.

To see if children are bullies, watch how they interact with others, she said. Children may be bullies if they need to have power over others and are aggressive toward others.

Parents and teachers may need help to seek help with children who are bullies to try to find out what the underlying problem is, but discipline is also important, she said.

Schools can fight bullying by developing “no bullying policies,” putting those policies in the handbook and making sure all teachers are familiar with it. Posters on the walls in the halls can also help.

Teachers need to be vigilant in taking action against bullying, Coy said, so that it’s clear to other students that it will not be tolerated.

A game that is not a game

Denise DeRusha’s son is a seventh-grader at Aubrey Middle School, and she said her son dealt with bullying as a sixth-grader. 

When DeRusha tried to address her concerns about bullying with the principal, she said, she and her husband weren’t satisfied.

An incident this year confirmed for DeRusha that middle school administrators are not handling the problem, she said.

During the fall semester, her son was on the way home from an out-of-town athletic event with his team when two boys, against her son’s wishes, started playing a game called “Flinch” with him.

He kept telling them to stop, she said.

At the end of the bus trip and in the locker room, those boys had determined her son had 16 punches on the arm coming, she said, apparently because that’s the number of times he flinched during the game.

Her son decided to just take the punches to get it over with, DeRusha said, but instead of punching him on the arm, they started punching him in the chest.

His mother said he eventually collapsed and was having problems breathing, and his friends tried to get the boys to stop, saying, “Don’t hit him; hit us instead.”

When five boys walked her son out to her car that night, she knew something was wrong, but her son didn’t tell her about it.

He said he had tripped and was in pain and having a hard time breathing.

DeRusha took him to the doctor that evening.

Finally, the mother of one boy who took punches for DeRusha’s son asked how he was, and the whole story came out about a week after the incident, she said.

DeRusha said she reported it to the principal, who directed her to the coach, who then directed her back to the principal.

She finally got some help from the dean of students, she said, and was told to file a report with the student resource officer.

In December, DeRusha also filed a formal complaint against the principal with the superintendent.

She said she believes the boys who assaulted her son received only three days of in-school suspension because there were no permanent injuries, and they have so far have left him alone. But her son’s grades have declined by several points.

Aubrey police, according to Barrett, charged the two boys with a Class C misdemeanor assault.

Discipline policy

The Texas Bullying Prevention Act, passed in 2005, is the state’s first law to define bullying in a statute. It requires school districts to revise or create policies to prevent bullying, harassment and abuse at schools, at school events and in school vehicles.

The bill allows students victimized by bullying to transfer to another classroom or school campus within the district.

With only one middle school in Aubrey, Monaco said, school officials would have to make an agreement with other small school districts to deal with district-to-district transfers that would address bullying concerns.

If an Aubrey parent is concerned about something, the first person to contact is the teacher, and the teacher would handle it. If that doesn’t produce a satisfactory result, the parent would then make a complaint to the principal. If still not satisfied, the parent goes to the superintendent, and if needed, then the parent would finally go to the school board.

If the issue is handled at a lower level, Monaco says, he usually doesn’t hear about it.

The same is true for most school districts.

If the case goes to the student resource officer, then it is handled by the legal system, said Monaco.

According to Aubrey’s student handbook, fighting and scuffling, bullying and harassment are prohibited behaviors under the code of conduct at schools and all school-related functions, and they are subject to many different disciplinary techniques, ranging from a spoken correction to expulsion.

In Aubrey, as with other area school districts, students can also be punished for a violation of code of conduct for being tardy to class. 

If a student commits an assault, defined in the handbook “as intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing bodily injury to another,” that student “must” be placed in Aubrey’s disciplinary alternative education program, the book states.

According to disciplinary referral numbers, the number of disciplinary incidents district officials pull together every year, reports of aggressive behavior, fighting and horseplay have significantly decreased so far from last school to this school year at Aubrey Middle School.

Jones said she’s proud of her staff members and that she tries to make the school environment  as perfect as possible for her students.

The middle school works to prevent bullying with character education programs, outside speakers, counselors, student resource officers, training for teachers to be on the lookout and advisory classes, Jones said.

What other districts say

Some area school district officials say incidents of bullying appear to be on the decline this school year.

Ponder Superintendent Bruce Yeager said he hasn’t really had any complaints of bullying this year in the district, and none ended in an injury requiring a police report.

Telena Wright, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction and acting superintendent in the Argyle school district, also reported no incidents of bullying causing injuries that would lead to a police report. She said she has not seen an increase in bullying this school year.

There were reports of name-calling, stealing and threats at Krum’s intermediate school this year, but no other incidents of bullying at any of the district’s other schools, Krum Superintendent Troy Hamm said.

He said he is not aware of any injuries from bullying that would require a police report this year.

In its student disciplinary action summary, the Krum district reported no assaults during last school year, with the exception of disciplinary action taken on a sexual assault that happened off-campus, said Hamm.

The Sanger school district reported three incidents of assaults last school year, according to its student disciplinary summary.

“All of our campuses are reporting that there is no increase in incidents of bullying this year. In fact, three of the five campuses tell me that bullying incidents have declined this school year,” said Sanger Superintendent Jack Biggerstaff.

So far this year, he said, Sanger High School is the only campus to have a student receive injuries related to bullying that required police involvement.

Recourse

In other cases across the nation, parents have sought legal recourse. A 2004 bullying incident in Florida led to a $4 million judgment against the victim’s school, the St. Petersburg Times reported in October.

Brett Hetrick said he and his wife have spoken with a few lawyers but don’t have the disposable income to pursue the matter.

In February, the DeRushas and the Hetricks spoke of their concerns about bullying during the school board meeting and how they feel it is still an ongoing problem.

The Hetricks sent a letter to each school board member in hopes of triggering some sort of change.

The Hetricks contend there are many more parents concerned about bullying in the schools, but “they do not want to be named for fear of reprisal from the school district.”

Chrissy Sitterson’s son was in sixth grade at Aubrey Middle School, which she feels is not much different from other middle schools.

She ended up pulling him out of the Aubrey school system, and one reason was bullying, she said.

“We’re happy with our choice, and thank God we have a choice,” said Sitterson, about home-schooling her son. Some parents don’t have a choice, she said.

She thinks the district, as a whole, is a great school district and that it’s just a few students who are causing the bullying problems.

Brett Hetrick thinks home-schooling is going well for his two sons and that he and his wife have taken care of their children. But, he said, they are vocal about this issue out of civil responsibility, knowing that other children still have to put up with bullying.

The Hetricks’ younger son is doing exercises to strengthen his arm so he can hold his saxophone in place, since he is unable to use a neck strap.

“He’s a creative boy. He’s figuring out different things he could do to not give it up,” said Brett Hetrick.

AMY DODD THOMPSON can be reached at 940-566-6876. Her e-mail address is athompson@dentonrc.com.

WHAT IS BULLYING?

Bullying can be very broadly defined. Here’s how area school districts define bullying in verbal and physical form:

* It causes physical harm to a student.

* It damages a student’s property.

* It places a student in fear of harm or of damage to the student’s property.

* It creates an intimidating, threatening or abusive environment for a student.