West Mifflin mom pulls kids from district over bullying concerns
WEST MIFFLIN, Pa. (KDKA) - A West Mifflin mother of four was brought to tears Monday by what she calls a serious bullying problem within the district.
She watched the disturbing video circulating last week in horror. The video captured the moment when a high school student with autism was attacked in the bathroom.
Ashley Lewis told KDKA Monday she's acting in effort to protect her two girls from bullying at the district's elementary school.
"This is the number one reason why kids come to school and they end up in gun shootings and mass shootings because they're not being heard," said Lewis, mother of students in the West Mifflin Area School District.
She's listening to her two daughters. They're 9 and 6 years old and attend Homeville Elementary. She believes the bullying ramped up recently on the school bus.
"Their solution was to move the kids that were being bullied to the front of the bus and then put the bully still on the bus and right now they have a security guard on the bus because they can't guarantee the safety of the children on the bus," said Lewis.
She believes moving the kids getting bullied, versus moving the alleged bully, is a failure of school policy.
"Right now, I decided to pull my kids out of the district. They're going to go to online school," Lewis said.
She'll soon enroll her girls in Commonwealth Charter School for the upcoming school year. In the meantime, she said she hopes the district employs more resources.
"I know a lot of other parents on the community side have been having trouble as well and no results," said Lewis.
KDKA's Meghan Schiller searched the district's elementary handbook for bullying. It says bullying requires an investigation, the principal should contact parents and then discipline such as mediation, detention or suspension could follow. Lewis says that's not always happening and there's "too much" on the line.
"I don't think putting a club in or something like that is going to help," said Lewis. "I think charging parents or maybe changing the policy of the district would help a little bit better because it would be a wake-up call for parents to start waking up. If they have to drive their kids to school then, that's what we're going to have to do."
Lewis tells KDKA she fears until school leaders and board members start treating bullying "more seriously" and taking clear steps to actively address it, she believes she's the first of many parents to leave the district.
"It's horrible! No parent should have to go through that," said Lewis.
