22 March 2009

Tuggers teen assaulted at school

| nyssa76
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Today’s CT has an ‘interesting’ article on an assault which took place at a Tuggeranong high school earlier this week.

To quote the Minister: ”We will eliminate violence and bullying in schools only when we eliminate violence and bullying in society.”

No, we will elimiate bullying in schools when the consequences fit the action. A suspension is a holiday for students and gives them time to organise another bashing or to get mates involved.

Bullies have more ‘power’ – like they need more – than their victims. In order to get a bully removed from the school, there are several hoops which need to be jumped through. The “every child has a right to learn” mantra is always attached.

The victim’s parents only need to withdraw their child and enrol them somewhere else to stop the situation repeating – or so they think. Thanks to Bebo, Facebook, mobiles and the like, the kid can be track throughout any school in Canberra and be ‘set up’.

If my intel is correct, the victim in this case had already left one school and was set up, through the means listed above, to be bashed.

I’d like to see a tougher stance taken with bullies in that they are removed from the school and placed in any one of the ‘achievement’ centres around Canberra or better still, re-open the behavioural units. They can still have an education, but their victims are not forced to leave their schools. ACTDET’s policy on bullying also needs to be updated and made more relevant to what’s actually going on in schools.

Furthermore, I’d also like to see, and this is a long shot, the parents of bullies held accountable and that includes allowing the use of their computers to upload bullying paraphanalia.

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The public education system is totally dysfunctional because of the bleeding-heart lefties who are more concerned about pandering to the needs of psychotic little demon-spawn than the needs of honest hard-working citizens’ children.

Skidbladnir said :

Mission creep isn’t always terrible, just something to be aware of and managed (and is why original versions of project mission statements can come in handy down the track, for purposes of eventual project differentiation).

Just for my tuppence, a group called “Healing Through Truth – Sexual Abuses at Marist and Daramalan” didn’t seem the most logical choice for dealing with _student bullying at a public high school_.
Feel free to set me straight though.

PS: NAPCAN ACT might be at least able to give you ideas of where to look for small-scale support, even if your group is a bit outside their scope.
You may be a bit too small to qualify for most targetted community support programs I know of. 😐

Cheers Skid. Time for Healing ACT is the official name but for reasons various it comes up as “Healing Through Truth – Sexual Abuses at Marist and Daramalan” to recipients in outgoing e-mails. This hasn’t caused any issues to date as these outgoing e-mails are almost always only to those involved in the Marist/Dara issue. While this may need to be changed at some point in the distant future (depending on what comes of the way we deal with broader issues that people bring to us, such as bullying and physical abuse), I’m keen to keep the name as it is at present to help us ensure we maintain our focus almost exclusively on the Marist and Dara issue.

As a Project Manager, I’m very aware of scope creep and its detrimental effects which is why assistance to other persons that approach us with broader issues has to be limited at this time to facilitating contacts with cousellors, etc. Again, what we are hoping will come out of the Marist and Dara case will also assist the victims of these other abuses anyway. More on that another time…

And thanks for the heads-up on possible assistance, the amount of time that I spend running the group and ‘fighting the fight’ is bigger the I first thought but that’s OK, I’m just glad I have an understanding wife and employer!

What we need is more net censorship

The girl ringleader is an absolute sh!t, unfortunately it takes but one ‘rotten apple’ to tar a school with a reputation. I can assure you CCHS is totally onto this bully, though this awful circumstance seems to have slipped thru the net. They can arise so quickly, as Nyssa said, thru the use of technology.

I actually think the girl perpetrator has serious psychiatric needs. She displays a number of disturbing behaviours (towards herself and others) that I won’t go into, and is a VERY bad influence as she is also very controlling.

Interestingly, her mum seems a nice person, and totally tearing her hair out with impotence. I hope the school is now seeking professional advice about this aspect.

My daughter had a sort of ‘outer circle’ relationship with this girl for a while last year, which created all sorts of difficulties for our family as my daughter became rather difficult to manage. Thankfully she has finally become assertive enough to steer clear of her.

To quote the Minister: ”We will eliminate violence and bullying in schools only when we eliminate violence and bullying in society.”

Here’s a challenge for the minister: try leading by example.

Mission creep isn’t always terrible, just something to be aware of and managed (and is why original versions of project mission statements can come in handy down the track, for purposes of eventual project differentiation).

Just for my tuppence, a group called “Healing Through Truth – Sexual Abuses at Marist and Daramalan” didn’t seem the most logical choice for dealing with _student bullying at a public high school_.
Feel free to set me straight though.

PS: NAPCAN ACT might be at least able to give you ideas of where to look for small-scale support, even if your group is a bit outside their scope.
You may be a bit too small to qualify for most targetted community support programs I know of. 😐

Fantastic! I like things and stuff.

: )

Hey Granny,

I’ll e-mail you seperately on this issue. ‘Things’ are afoot. (Could that be any more cryptic?!).

Dan, Agitator comes after Veteran Rioter. You’ve gradumacated! Congratulations!! And also to young BerraBoy on his Veteran Riotorship.

Also, I don’t know that I’m up to a group Woolies Dickson carpark meeting. I am a grandmother after all!

But good to hear you’re working out for the revolution.

: )

The education department need to take their duty of care seriously. If they were looking down the barrel of a class action they’d take it seriously enough.

The government won’t be accountable for the safety of students unless they are kept accountable. One day I’ll make a bit of a stink about it, but like BerraBoy68 that’s a fight for another day for me.

Happy to get behind anybody advocating on the issue in the meantime, however.

really ?

Sounds regressive to me.

Agitators are ‘bigger’ than Veteran Rioters.

Wanting to go back to Veteran status is like asking “Delete at least 1000 of my comments please, Jb”

I have been here over 3 years and yet to get (back) to vetaran rioter status.

For some reason I was, then I wasn’t, and now I’m still not.

justbands said :

To be fair to Mr Barr, didn’t he just say exactly what a lot of you are saying? ie. That they learn the violence/bad behaviour from their parents. That is, that it’s a wider problem in our society as a whole, rather than a specific school bullying issue. Rather than washing his hands of the issue, could it be that he’s actually admitting there’s a bigger problem that this is one part of? Perhaps not…but still, maybe.

If their parents go and assault another person then they may find themselves being charged and the consequences that may result from that. The bully students seem to be able to act without consequences that might encourage them to think about their actions. Give the schools and teachers the power to act and discourage bullies otherwise you are only training future criminals where the cycle will continue when they breed.

And with that post I become a Veteran Rioter! And a belated thanks to JB for taking me out of moderation last week.

Skidbladnir said :

*notices some mission creep in BerraBoy’s group*

Hey Skid. I know this is OT (sorry JB) but just wanted to respond to your post: ‘yes’ and ‘No’. The focus of Time For Healing ACT is primarily where it must be at this point in time, on helping the victims of sexual abuse at Marist and Dara from the early 70’s though 90’s. There is a lot going on at the moment that I am not able to discuss publically but those in the group will receive an update e-mail today.

That said, since starting the group I have received several e-mails from victims of sexual and physical abuse at other ACT schools and these are being assisted as best we can. It has also been suggested by a couple of MLA’s that the groups ‘mission’ should be expanded to assist all victims of sexual abuse at ACT schools. Basically, if I could get funding to run the group full-time to help all ACT victims I most certainly would. But noting that is unlikely to happen, I’ll just do what can be done with the limited resources I have available to assist those from Marist and Dara. I won’t turn anyone away though where they can be helped – even if it’s just to put them in touch with a counsellor.

Possibly more importantly, the path we are taking in relation to Marist and Dara may well have flow-on effects that would assist all other victims of sexual abuse in the ACT.

Cheers

Berra

They are standing up for the downtrodden.

It is ridiculous that more isn’t being done about this situation. Get the perps OUT of schools, and into somewhere where they aren’t hurting people who aren’t complicit in being hurt. round them up and put them together somewhere. Why shoudl their rights be more important than the rights of the kids they’re targetting?

I don’t care about their rights, or their rehabilitation. They’re criminals.

*notices some mission creep in BerraBoy’s group*

Hi Berra Boy, have just emailed you (I added an “e” to your email address though).

Pris

misspris said :

farq said :

give me so much confidence in the public school system.

Am I right in thinking, at least with private schools the bully is expelled?

No, unfortunately someone will probably have to be killed before this child is expelled. Nice huh? I think they think they can “redeem” this kid but I’d say it’s already too late. She threatened to have my child stabbed last week. Sad thing is, I believe she’d do it.

Misspris – Can you name the school? While it’d be good to shame them here I’d also be interested given my role in Time For Healing ACT. While we’re mainly dealing with the sexual abuse of students at Marist and Daramalan, I’ve also been contacted by victims at other schools around the ACT. I’d be interested in getting the name of the school just to see if it’s one of the one’s already on our radar as having failed their students. If you don’t want to name them here, please contact me seperately at timforhealingact@gmail.com

farq said :

give me so much confidence in the public school system.

Am I right in thinking, at least with private schools the bully is expelled?

No, unfortunately someone will probably have to be killed before this child is expelled. Nice huh? I think they think they can “redeem” this kid but I’d say it’s already too late. She threatened to have my child stabbed last week. Sad thing is, I believe she’d do it.

BerraBoy68 said :

Perhaps we can kick our campaign off with a group meeting in the Woollies carpark at in Dickson, that sounds like fun.

Careful not to bend over, though. You might lose your ring.

Granny said :

Oi!! Powerless, my fat aunt! I would just say, ‘Sic ’em Sir BerraBoy68!’ and they’d be toast!

Too right granny. I’ve started getting fit again, just in case our rebellion comes off.

Perhaps we can kick our campaign off with a group meeting in the Woollies carpark at in Dickson, that sounds like fun.

give me so much confidence in the public school system.

Am I right in thinking, at least with private schools the bully is expelled?

As the parent of a 13 year old child who spent an hour on the phone to the police last week, I’m hearing you! It seems like the school can’t, or won’t, do anything about the situation so if it means that I have to take out an AVO against said child and therefore make it impossible for her to attend the school then I will. That’s how frustrated I’ve become with the Catholic school system. I really do think that the school’s duty of care is to my child and other girls at the school – not the repeat offender.

To be fair to Mr Barr, didn’t he just say exactly what a lot of you are saying? ie. That they learn the violence/bad behaviour from their parents. That is, that it’s a wider problem in our society as a whole, rather than a specific school bullying issue. Rather than washing his hands of the issue, could it be that he’s actually admitting there’s a bigger problem that this is one part of? Perhaps not…but still, maybe.

The comment from Andrew Barr

We will eliminate violence and bullying in schools only when we eliminate violence and bullying in society.

It sounds like he has given up on the issue. Our children have the right to a safe school environment as much as adults have the right to a safe workplace. Can we please have a minister who shows some commitment to upholding these rights ?

Pommy bastard7:20 am 23 Mar 09

I like the idea of bonds having to be posted by the parents of these bullies, bonds forfeited to the school should the kid re offend. Sanctions on benefits should also be considered where the parents are unemployed.Exclusion from school is often the only sanction available to schools, and as has been stated the kids often treat these as holidays, I would suggest a “boot camp” style school for those excluded from mainstream schooling, but I think the PC brigade may balk at that..

captainwhorebags7:20 am 23 Mar 09

Donewrong: the 16 lane highway concept is not the preferred transport option put forth by the RiotACT junta.

Canals and light rail. It’ll work I tell you.

Oi!! Powerless, my fat aunt! I would just say, ‘Sic ’em Sir BerraBoy68!’ and they’d be toast!

what these “kids” are doing is criminal. God knows what happens to the victims, how do they get over such sustained, vicious attacks? Being followed to a new school and set up by these criminal networks, it beggars belief.

The people doing this need to be dealt with by law. It’s gone beyond a school issue. If the worst they can do is suspend or expel, clearly more needs to be done.

this crap has got to stop. What do these little criminals go on to become after school, I wonder? The likes of the people who smashed up teh Qantas hall in Sydney today?

It’s got to stop.

Donewrong for Chief Minister.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy8:01 pm 22 Mar 09

Oh the stories I could tell you from last year….but I’d lose my job.

I went to a pretty rough highschool myself (in NSW). I imagine we would have some cracker stories between the two of us.

After reading the comments in this and the Wanniassa death thread, and the perpetual ones in the court/police threads, I have been sitting here trying to imagine what Canberra would be like if there was a coup d’etat by Riotact posters.

They would probably put up Granny as a beloved but powerless figurehead, whilst in the meantime organising public beheadings and limb removals for first-time offenders. All public art would be destroyed and 90% of government spending would be allocated to building magnificent 16 lane highways that would allow you to travel from Gungahlin to Conder in 43 seconds. The other 10% would be spent on establishing a team of bureaucrats to come up with new critques of the concept of ACT self-government. The bullshit Gold Coast comparison is running pretty thin.

The problems in such a case are many but in all honesty, but to my mind people wathihg and filming this is almost worse than the crime itself. You have to ask yourself would you jump in if you saw a person being bashed?

I did at the Woden bus interchange about 5 years ago when a kid (about 15) punched an inspector in the face, the bloke hit back and within seconds about 20 more more kids came out of nowhere to beat the bloke to the ground, where he also received several kicks to the head. Everyone else sat and watched and I have to say I don’t hold the women or other kids present accountable at all, but the other blokes around could have helped. When I got this bloke to his feet I ran him to the other end of the interchange as fast as we could go with punches raining on us. Cops arrived quickly but of the many kids involved they only picked up one (incidentally, he was the only non-indigenous kid involved) and he was apparently released that night with a caution.

In short, what punishment is there these days for these idiots.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :

Why can’t the matter be referred to the Police?

It apparantly has been.

http://afp.gov.au/media_releases/act/2009/police_investigate_school-girl_assault,_chisholm

But as all the people involved are probably underage, we will probably never hear if anyone is charged.

VY, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

The only reason the school is named to the public is because the parents spoke to the Canberra Times.

Oh the stories I could tell you from last year….but I’d lose my job.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy6:32 pm 22 Mar 09

Why can’t the matter be referred to the Police? With a bit of planning and support I reckon the Police could organise a program to put the frighteners up some of these bullies good and proper. In my experience, fear is the only thing the bully responds to.

Sad for the bully, but I think the rights of the victim come first.

Sounds like the Minister is throwing his hands in the air and saying its too hard to solve.

How about things like “encouraging” the parents of “difficult” children to take an interest by making them pay bonds to have their kids in school, and forfeit these when they muck up – $1000 they can’t spend on smokes, drugs, plasma TVs or whatever their vices are might focus their attention on their spawn’s behaviour.

grunge_hippy6:01 pm 22 Mar 09

behaviour units were useless. It was a means to get these kids away from everyone else, but create a zoo of misfits where no learning took place. The kids still went back to their ‘home’ school, where they practiced what they learnt with all the other ratbags. these days there are Behaviour management consultants, which (some) are just as useless.

I agree that bullies need tougher consequences, and it does need to involve their parents. Trouble is, alot of these bullies learn their best techniques from the parents!!! There is no ownership of their behaviour, either by the kids or parents. They dont see what they do as a problem. There is no point trying to discipline these kids when they dont think they are in the wrong.

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