James is certainly that. Smarter than most, small. Did you know he skipped a grade last year? I don’t think that’s helped him any but his parents and a committee of teachers felt we couldn’t hold him back. Maybe we should have.”
“We shouldn’t have to,” she argued, getting a little hot. “That boy should be free to move ahead if he’s capable without four other boys attacking him for it.”
Les nodded slowly. “Can you identify the bullies?”
“By face, not by name. They must be in Mrs. Teasdale’s math classes.”
“If they’re still in math at all.” He sighed. “How would you prefer to handle it?”
“The rules call for suspension,” she reminded him. When he didn’t answer immediately, she started to feel both annoyed and nervous. Surely he wasn’t going to propose they simply ignore this?
Marian stuck her head in the door. “James Carney never went to the nurse.” Then she popped out again.
“So he must be all right,” Les remarked.
“That doesn’t make this all go away!”
Les lifted his brows and held up a hand. “I didn’t say that. I’m just relieved the Carney boy is okay.”
“Physically okay,” Cassie said almost sarcastically. “I’m sure I don’t need to educate you on the other effects of bullying.”
“Of course not.” He sounded almost sharp. “I’m as well-informed as you on the subject. That’s why it’s against our code of conduct.”
She tried to dial back her irritation. “I’m sorry. It just upset me, and then when they defied me that way, I got even more concerned. If they’re not going to listen to a teacher, how are we going to stop this? And what are we going to do about it?”
Les leaned forward, shoving his lunch to one side. He rested his forearms on his desk. “I don’t think suspensions would be prudent, not yet.”
“What?” She was horrified and still sickened by what she had seen. “We can’t just ignore this. And we can’t ignore the rules if we expect them to have any force.”
“Just hold on a minute and calm down a bit. I understand you’re upset and I understand why. You have every reason to be upset. But this isn’t a big-city school. I don’t favor zero tolerance for a very good reason. Kids will be kids… .”
She started to open her mouth but he waved her to silence.
“Just hear me out, Cassie. I’m not excusing what they did. It was wrong. No question. No argument. But we have to ask ourselves what will be the best way to handle this with the least amount of damage.”
It took her a moment and a deep breath, but finally she relaxed. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“We aren’t going to tolerate bullying. You and I agree on that. But we have to ask ourselves how much damage we might do with our response. You must have noticed by now that not many of our students go on to college. Some of that is because they have the family business waiting for them the day they graduate. Some is because folks simply can’t afford it. We have a handful who get scholarships and an equally small handful who can afford it. Most of our students who get any further schooling do it at the local community college.”
She nodded. All of this had been explained at the time she was hired.
“So we have to ask ourselves,” Les said patiently, “whether we want to do something that might make a student choose to drop out, or that might damage a student’s ability to get a college scholarship. We’ve got a couple, I’m sure you know, who are poised to get athletic scholarships. Suspension would take that away.”
It was then that she made a mental connection and knew who one of the bullies was. “One of them was our star basketball forward.”
Les lowered his head. “Cripes. Now you’re talking about the state championship and a boy’s entire future. He’s looking good to get a basketball scholarship. Recruiters have been here several times.”
“He should have thought of that before he started bullying James Carney.”
“I agree. But he’s still seventeen. You remember being that age? How many times did you think things through, especially when you were with a group of people your age? That’s what bothers me about zero tolerance. Why wreck any kid’s life if we can handle it another way?”
Cassie bit her lip. She wasn’t exactly a fan of zero tolerance herself, understanding that young people made mistakes almost as naturally as they breathed. “But this is a little different,” she argued. “This was no mistake. Four of them ganged up on one student. I don’t know how far they might have gone if I hadn’t barged in. And we have to consider James Carney and what this might do to him.”
“I am considering it,” Les said. “I want it stopped, but I don’t want it to result in additional bullying or anybody’s life being wrecked.”
“So what will you do?”
“You identify those students. I’ll call their parents and make it clear that if this happens again they will be suspended. In the meantime I’ll give them detention.”
Cassie felt sickened, yet she couldn’t rightly argue with what he proposed. He was right. They had to be careful not to inflame the situation, and take care that they didn’t cause students to drop out or lose scholarships, unless this continued.
“You’re not happy,” Les remarked. He poked at his lunch listlessly then ignored it again. “I understand. I’m not happy, either. We’ve always had some minor bullying—what school doesn’t? But I don’t think we’ve ever had an incident as bad as what you’re describing, at least not in my memory. If you’ve got a better solution, let me know. Just understand, there are no perfect solutions. If I bring the hammer down too hard, that could result in James being bullied worse. We’ve got to try to reason our way through this to cause the least damage to all five of those students.”
She said nothing, feeling her stomach sinking but unable to argue against his logic. “I hate bullying,” she said finally. “It damages the victim well past the incident, sometimes for life. What’s more, I hate the thuggish mentality of those who do it.”
“Then maybe we need to do something about the mentality. It’s not enough to just put a ban on it in the code. Maybe we need to use this as an instructional opportunity.”
She perked a little at that statement. “How so?”
“We need to educate our students, maybe their families. We need them to truly understand how bad this is.”
She nodded. “What those boys were doing could get them arrested.”
It seemed to her that Les blanched a bit. “Oh, let’s not go that far. Criminal records for assault? Battery, if it happened?”
“I don’t want to do that, either,” she agreed. “I’m just saying, if we can’t get through with an emotional appeal to a sense of fair play and what’s right, we could also list the criminal consequences. Bring it
