Denver school keeps bully, boots assault victim
Updated 28 May 2004: Response received from school system to email inquiry.
Student Whose Hair Set Afire Told To Stay Home
Courtney Glowczewski is 13 years old. She is a good student but has a problem - she’s a target for bullies because she has a small arm and leg due to her cerebral palsy. Last week the bullying got much worse when she was threatened with a knife and then had her hair lit on fire.
“He pulled out a knife, a silver knife, a pocket knife, and then he said ‘What!?’ So I was scared and didn’t know what to do,” said Glowczewski.
As she walked to her seat she smelled smoke and one of her classmates was patting her hard on the back.
“I looked and there was a black spot on the back of my shirt. And then I saw some black hair falling from my hair,” said Glowczewski.
Her hair was on fire and the other student said that she was trying to help put it out.
The school’s solution to the problem was to send Courtney home and tell her not to bother coming back to school.
7NEWS discovered that while Glowczewski was sent home, her alleged attacker is still in school, even though administrators confirmed he had a knife.
The principal has now admitted her staff did not call police, did not interview potential witnesses, and did not conduct a proper investigation.
Boy has a knife, threatens crippled girl with it, lights her hair on fire. The school keeps the attacker, gets rid of the victim. I’m flabbergasted.
(Tip credit to WizBang)
UPDATE:
I sent an email to Mark Stevens, Director of Public Information for Denver Public Schools, and received a response yesterday. Reviewing the post and comments at WizBang shows that it is a form response. Still, it is more than I expected and it appears that the school is now working in good faith to correct the situation. Here is the response I received:
Jim,
Thanks for your e-mail and your concern.
There were a series of serious lapses in process in the way in which this incident was handled. The student has since been disciplined. And the student being harassed should have been encouraged to stay in school and should have been provided with a safe, supportive learning environment.
One of the district’s three goals is to set high expectations for students and staff (and parents and community members as well) and this series of events fell far short of that goal.
I’m attaching below a copy of the Board of Education’s policy on bullying just so you know that our standards on this issue - and procedures for dealing with it - are clearly stated.
Sincerely,
Mark Stevens
303-764-3414
The mission of the Denver Public Schools, the center of learning for the community, is to guarantee that our children and youth acquire knowledge, skills and values to become self-sufficient citizens and lifelong learners. We can achieve this mission by providing personalized learning experience in an environment that is safe, conducive to learning and free from unnecessary disruption.
The Denver Public Schools supports a secure school environment, conducive to teaching and learning in an environment free from threat, harassment and any type of bullying behavior. The Board of Education is adopting this policy to promote consistency of approach and to help create an environment in which all types of bullying are regarded as unacceptable.
DEFINITION: Bullying is defined “as any written or verbal expression, or physical act or gesture, or pattern thereof, that is intended to cause distress upon one or more students in the school, on school grounds, in school vehicles, at a designated school bus stop, or at school activities or sanctioned events.” CRS 22-32-109.1 (2)(a)(X)
CONSEQUENCES: Students who engages in any act of bullying is subject to appropriate disciplinary action in accordance with District Policy JK (VI) pertaining to discipline procedures and may include suspension, expulsion and/or referral to law enforcement authorities. The severity and pattern, if any, of the bullying shall be taken into consideration when disciplinary decisions are made.
The Superintendent shall develop a comprehensive program to address bullying at all grade levels. The program shall be directed to accomplish the following goals:
1. To send a clear message to students, staff, parents and community members that bullying will not be tolerated.
2. To implement procedures for immediate intervention, investigation, and confrontation of students engaged in bullying behavior.
3. To initiate programs to change the behavior of students engaged in bullying behaviors through re-education on acceptable behavior, discussions, counseling and appropriate negative consequences.
4. To develop and foster a productive partnership with parents and community members in order to help maintain a bully-free environment.
5. To support victims of bullying by means of individual and peer counseling.
6. To recognize and praise positive, supportive behaviors of students toward one another on a regular basis.
They’re pickin on her because she’s disabled. Hey, she could sue them under the ADA!
Sickening.
That’s… sick. Just sick.
Lets have zero tolerance for those bozos. They should be fired and then have their hair set on fire so they can learn why permiting bullying is wrong
I’M NOT GLENN
but I’m going to play him on H&OES. All the edu-bloggers seem to have picked up a horrific story of bullying in a g-school. Joanne Jacobs, Kimberly Swygert, and Jim Peacock all have expressed righteous indignation. Read ‘em all (and…
Well, I guess you could argue her burning hair was disrupting the class…
Can we get a little zero tolerance here, please? A 13-year-old Denver girl said she was threatened with a knife at her middle school and her hair was set on fire, yet she was the one who was told to…
Good for you for emailing the school! We deserve more than a form response, though. And I’d like to hear more about the discipline the little knife-wielding firebug received.
I agree, that is sickening. Yet, hopefully the “comprehensive program” that the school comes up with will not end up being another zero tolerance policy.
Mixed Issues
Hawkins takes a repugnant example of bullying of a handicapped student and makes it some sort of pseudo-case for school…
when i saw a story about this on the news…it brought tears to my eyes, that girl didn’t deserve ANY of that! my brother has a similar disability, so that kind of hits home. if i lived near that town, that boy who did that to her would be paying some serious consequences!
So glad you e-mailed them. Too bad, they failed to read their own policies,when this incident occurred. If you do not, know the rules, then how are you suppose to know how to apply it.
You send a child home, whose hair has been singed by another child. Where was her threat, to the safety, of this school?
There are some Adults, who need to answer for this one.
The fire bug, needs a good butt busting.
Unless heads roll, the district’s response is meaningless. But then, the state of Colorado hasn’t been good about accepting responsibility this month. No one is getting punished for the events at U. Colorado. Indiscipline starts at the top.
ok let me simplify story.
white girl set on fire and threatened by black boy
black principle sends white girl home for being a fire hazard
black boy cheered on like O.J.
everything is much clearer in black and white
I suspected that this is a case of Black favoritism covering up for Black violence from the beginning, but I need to see a photo of the attacker to be sure. The media won’t show me one. Is the reason that the attacker is under 18? No - the victim is also under 18, and they showed her picture, didn’t they?
So, while I’m not sure, what I think is that a Black male student terrorized and tortured a White female student. The WFS dared to make protest to the Black School Principle within her school. The Black School Principle predictably abused his authority and punished the White girl instead of the Black boy. I’m betting that the reason we’re not seeing a picture of the perpetrator is that he is BLACK.
Another thing I’d bet on is that there are lots of episodes of Black violence against Whites in the public schools that get swept under the rug, but the media doesn’t give a damn about it usually. Their standard operating procedure is that it’s racism only when the Whites fight back. The difference this time is that the victim is handicapped, and that’s what got the liberal journalists in a dither.
Best of Me Symphony #35
This week’s Symphony is an operetta. Sing along! Zee frontier iron horse, mit Puffen und Cranken, Helped out extincting ein buffalo. Das rightving talk choo-choo ist smothering Al Franken, Und vat’s to become of Garafolo? Marty Dodge at
The school that my daughter went to has an outrageous policy that if you don’t defend yourself agenst a bully you YOU GET EXPELLED!!!!!!!!!!! She was being bullied and refused to protect herself and was booted for the remainder of the year. Outrageous huh?
Oh my God! How did a tragic story of abuse of a disabled girl evolve into a black and white hate issue? What difference in the world does the color of either parties skin make in this case? She was victimized - period. For the record remember your history before you begin to accuse black on white. Not long ago you and your kind protested black intergration of schools. The way the young girl was treated was wrong. I was searching for information on Aurora public schools and came across this site, I had to stop and post a message even at this late date. People have got to stop seeing color and recognize we are all children of God and when someone does wrong to one he/she does wrong to all.