10 year old boy

[Tigermike 3,048]

It really does not suprise me anymore.

Sex harassment case swirls around boy, 10

By Blair Anthony Robertson -- Bee Staff Writer

Published 2:15 a.m. PST Wednesday, February 25, 2004

The parents of a 10-year-old boy suspended from a public school for sexual harassment are shocked and angry that a playground outburst by their son has been given such a distressing and politically charged label.

Insisting that the first-year principal at Theodore Judah Elementary School overreacted and used poor judgment, they say they are appealing the suspension and want the "ridiculous" punishment stricken from the boy's record.

They also believe the Sacramento City Unified School District should revamp a sexual harassment policy that treats children as young as 9 the same as 12th-graders.

"I'm just very upset about the whole thing," said Romola Wilcox, 42, the boy's mother. "I know he said something that was wrong, but the category they put it into, 'sexual harassment,' is extreme."

According to the "notice of suspension" signed by Principal Marilee Bellotti, the fifth-grader made a crude remark about a girl's chest Feb. 5. The boy was required to stay home the following day. The suspension document does not describe the girl's reaction to the comment or how it came to the attention of the principal.

School officials, citing the boy's privacy, declined to discuss specifics of the incident but said the sexual harassment policy is the same for public school students throughout California.

Bellotti called sexual harassment at the K-6 school in east Sacramento an "occasional occurrence," though the punishment of the boy was the first such suspension she has issued.

"Children sometimes don't understand the boundaries of appropriate language and behavior," she said. "They can be very offensive to someone else. They do cause a lot of hurt."

Last week, in the wake of the suspension, the principal said she ordered a 17-minute video, "Respecting Each Other: Sexual Harassment Prevention," which she plans to show to several classes.

But that education comes too late for the suspended boy, say his parents. Because of his age and the nature of the incident, The Bee is withholding his name, which is different from both his parents.

"It's unbelievable that you have this policy out there for sexual harassment for kids who don't even understand what sex is," said Dave Blagsvedt, 41, the child's father. "So what do I have to do, include sexual harassment in my birds-and-the-bees talk? It's come this far, from Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill into the workplace and now it's made it down to the schoolyard."

Blagsvedt noted that many workplaces have daylong classes on sexual harassment policy. Schoolchildren are simply given a booklet on behavior that includes a form that must be signed by a parent and returned to the school.

The 52,000-student Sacramento City Unified School District has had 435 suspensions for sexual harassment since 2000. Punishment is largely left to the discretion of each school's principal, though the sexual harassment policy calls for discipline to range from a lecture to suspension and even calling the police.

"There is a greater awareness that we live in a very small world and we need to be respectful of one another," said Maria Lopez, a school district spokeswoman.

Here's the account according to the boy's parents: The 10-year-old made the remark to a male friend on school grounds. The friend then ran over and repeated it to the girl. The incident occurred four days after the controversial Super Bowl halftime performance during which pop singer Janet Jackson exposed her breast. It was also a week after the boy attended a sex education class.

"Never in a million years did I think this would happen," said his mother. "It upset me just to think anyone else could think he would do something like that. If they had gotten him for vulgar speech, then I could understand that, but sexual harassment is a whole different thing."

The boy's parents say it would have been more effective if all of the pupils involved were brought together and the boy was given a chance to apologize. Instead, they say, the punishment has stigmatized him. He recently received a Valentine's card from a girl that read, "I hate you."

Jane Nelsen, author of a series of books on "positive discipline," called the punishment of the 10-year-old extreme and ineffective.

"It's making mountains out of molehills. I think it's way, way overboard," said Nelsen, who has a doctorate in educational psychology. "True discipline helps kids learn from what they've done so they don't repeat it in the future."

Nelsen said she would have sat down with the boy and posed a series of "curiosity questions," beginning by asking him what response he intended his outburst to get, how he felt about the reaction, what he learned from that reaction and what he could do to resolve the problem.

She said her method takes more time but is more effective in the long range.

"A misbehaving child is a discouraged child," Nelsen explained. "For some reason they don't feel they have belonging and significance, so this kid says this thing, thinking 'maybe this will make me feel more belonging and significant,' even though it's in a mistaken way.

"When you just punish a kid, somehow adults get the impression that you've done something, but in the long run you've done more damage than good," Nelson added. "You put a kid down and make him feel bad, they'll be more discouraged and more likely to misbehave in the future."

Larry Harper, a professor of human development at the University of California, Davis, called exchanges between boys and girls about their bodies "almost inevitable, let alone normal."

Referring to the boy's remark, Harper, who teaches a course on middle childhood and adolescence, said, "I wouldn't think it would be so much of a sexual statement as simply being a pain in the neck."

For now, the boy is apparently coping with the punishment and wants to move on, according to his mother, though that may not be so easy. He turns 11 today, and one friend has already said he is no longer allowed to attend the birthday party.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/8...p-9263893c.html

[BamaGrad03 0]

Ha! That's funny. Now they will have to teach the kid what the sex in sexual harrasment actually means...HE'S 10 PEOPLE!

[Tiger in Spain 0]

Kids give and take playground jabs and make insensitive remarks to each other all the time, always have and always will. It's not sexual harrassment......it's part of being a kid for crying out loud. They are little humans after all, not flesh covered robots.

Bring on the school vouchers! When average parents have a real choice about which school educates their kids, I believe we will see this kind of stupidity come to an end.

[TrueBlue72 0]

Two comments:

First, the kid didn't say anything to the girl, according to the account. He made a comment to another boy regarding the girl. If anyone believes that boys are not going to make such remarks, good and bad, to other boys regarding girls, they are seriously out of touch with reality.

Second, there was a lot of comment regarding Secretary Paige calling the NEA a terrorist organization. Which of this group of people do you think are members of the NEA????? Hmmmm..... maybe Paige is on to something!

[Tigermike 3,048]

Second, there was a lot of comment regarding Secretary Paige calling the NEA a terrorist organization. Which of this group of people do you think are members of the NEA????? Hmmmm..... maybe Paige is on to something!

Great connection!

[SouthLink02 8]

::shakes head::