Mama Bear and Brother Lion

Updated at the end of the post

Something happened on the playground at FE's school on Friday. He was basically assaulted by 4 other boys. 4 boys who are very aggressive normally. They are all related and all belong to some religious sect that no one else on campus can quite figure out. There are more of them on our campus, but these four are in the same grade as FE so they are the ones we're dealing with.

We had an incident with them last week as well, but that just involved name calling. The playground aides were less than sympathetic to FE basically just telling him not to worry about it. Well, on Friday the boys took it a step further. FE was playing football and accidentally hit one of the boys with the ball. At which point all four of them converged on him and started punching him and calling him names. They were conveniently around the corner where the aides couldn't see and as we have some new, exceptionally lazy aides on the playground this year, they were not walking around. Somehow FE got away from the boys and went and told the aide. Who gave the boys 5 minutes off of their recess. WHAT???? 5 MINUTES??? For ganging up on and punching a kid??? IDIOT!!!

When FE and SB got in the car on Friday, I asked FE how his day had been. he said "Kind of good and kind of bad" And SB said "You're going to be MAD!!" He had already told her about it in the pickup line. As soon as he told me what had happened, I turned my car around and went to speak to the administration. FE told his story and they were appalled. I, of course, was close to having a stroke. In 12 years with kids in school, we've never had an experience like this. I felt murderous towards the boys, their parents and the idiotic aides. And when I told the teenager? Let's just say it's really lucky for those boys that football practice interferes with him showing up on campus. Unfortunately, I don't think my 17 year old is capable of showing much age related discrimination when someone picks on his siblings.

This morning I was stopped by FE's teacher, the VP and the Principal all telling me how the situation was being dealt with. including the Principal letting the parents of these boys know that they are very lucky their sons are not being charged with assault. And that they might not be so lucky next time. And the aides are being put on notice as well. One more lapse in judgement like this one and they may well be searching for new jobs. This might be one time that I may play the school board president card.

Update: All four boys received a one day out of school suspension. That works for me.