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News Upstate mom arrested after confronting 'bullies' at school By: Diane Lee Posted: Jun 11, 2019 06:29 PM EDT
Updated: Jun 12, 2019 05:32 AM EDT
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A Simpsonville mom was arrested after she said she confronted the children who were bullying her son.
"I'm not right in my actions, but I'm right in standing up for my son," Jamie Rathburn said.
Greenville County Schools said the district was not the one who called police. District officials believe it was a concerned parent who saw a heated Facebook post.
Administrators said she was setting the wrong example if she had wanted to stop bullying.
Rathburn showed 7News a log she had kept of the bullying episodes.
"He got hit, kicked, hit with a computer, he was shoved, he was jerked off a slide from behind," Rathburn said.
On May 17, Rathburn walked into Greenbrier Elementary School without permission and confronted students.
"I feel like it was handled poorly. I feel like my son was neglected in the fact that he would ask for help and not receive it. He was not being heard, which is why I got involved," she said.
"I feel like it was handled poorly. I feel like my son was neglected in the fact that he would ask for help and not receive it. He was not being heard, which is why I got involved," she said.
The Greenville County Sheriff's Office said she "began yelling at them while pointing her finger in a threatening manner." They said she used "profanity" towards a teacher.
"I probably was seeming like a bully at that point. I'm not proud of it," said Rathburn.
Still, the Simpsonville mom is calling on the district to be more proactive.
Greenville County Schools said Greenbrier Elementary had been in frequent contact with Rathburn about the bullying and was taking steps to address it. But the district also said if a parent doesn't feel a school is being responsive, they should contact the district directly. Rathburn did not.
"It is never OK to confront other people's children and to use foul language with them and threatening language with them," said Beth Brotherton, Greenville County Schools District spokeswoman.
Part of Rathburn's frustration is she didn't know how the accused bullies were being punished. But the district said it would be a violation of the other families' privacy to release that information would.
Rathburn said her son knows she was only trying to protect him, and she hopes he can learn from her mistakes.
"I told him what I did wasn't OK. It wasn't. It was not OK. Mom shouldn't have done that, but I was upset and you see what happened when I allowed my emotions to control my behavior. I did something stupid and it got me arrested," she said.
The district also said all schools have access to a mental health expert who can work with students who have been bullied or are bullying.
And it said every third through 12th grader has a Chrome book with an anonymous hotline app so students can report bullying directly to the district.
Schools never do squat about bullies. They’re all talk.
Govt cops protecting incompetent Govt teachers. What’s new?
Sometimes the mama bear comes out in mothers. Many years ago my daughter who was 10 years old had end stage liver disease and because of that she had a swollen stomach that made her look pregnant . We took her to orientation of her new class and school and some bully boys came up to her with me and dad by her side and was relentlessly harassing her til I couldn’t take it anymore so I grabbed the kid by the collar and shook him around a bit. He runs to the security guard like a big baby. I was confronted by security and told them what happened and they walked away without incident. Yes I know I should not have done that but til this day I am not sorry. Btw my daughter finally got her liver transplant at 11 and another one at 28 and she’s doing ok.
Agreed! Especially LGBTQI bullies
“LBGTQI”
Yet another letter has been added.
Some poster in a different thread used LBGQWERTY. It’s getting to that point...
“It is never OK to confront other people’s children and to use foul language with them and threatening language with them,”
Sometimes it’s OK. Isn’t bullyng some kind of crime in schools now? It those in charge aren’t noticing the problem, then it’s fine for someone else to step in to protect the kid. Nobody was touched.
Note to the mom: Homeschool your child, for Pete’s sake!!
Why? Because one’s kid is a f....t that won’t fight back?
Reason no. 1 to NOT home school.
Your kid will have absolutely no real world experience and be a freak when he/she enters the REAL and CRUEL world.
I’ll list MANY MORE as time goes by.
I can understand her frustration. The school was doing nothing.
Making mental health services available to bullies? Laughable. Might as well just give them a pat on the head.
Thanks to God for your daughter being well!
“It is never OK to confront other people’s children and to use foul language with them and threatening language with them,”
I hate to say it, but this is why I would personally target the parents of the bullies - including getting very much in the face of the father.
“Schools never do squat about bullies. They’re all talk.”
True, very true.
About 3 decades back my daughter was in the 3rd grade. At least once every 2 or 3 weeks she would get beat up by three 6th grade boys. The last lime they ripped her winter jacket, destroyed her lunch box and pushed her face down into some mud. We complained to the school. The school said that it wasn’t on school property and they could do nothing. We complained to the parents of the 3 boys. “Not my son, he wouldn’t do such a thing”.
We enrolled our 3rd grader in Karate classes to give her the tools to defend herself.
Three months later the same 3 boys decided it was time to beat up the 3rd grader. She grabbed the index finger of the first kid, yanked down and broke it. She hit the second kid in the mouth with her lunch box and knocked out 4 teeth. The 3rd kid got hit upward with the palm of her hand and received a broken nose. This time the school called us in because they wanted to expel my daughter for fighting. We told them it wasn’t on school property and that if they’d done something about the bullying before, this never would have happened. We informed the school that if there were any punitive actions then we’d see them in court, because everyone has a right to self defense.
Nobody ever messed with the 3rd grade girl who beat up three sixth grader, for the rest of her time in school through graduation.
It’d been over 30 years since the event and she still takes lessons. She’s has a 4th level black belt.
The schools do nothing about predators in-house, but when a parent understandably, if inappropriately, goes ballistic, the administration goes all Miss Manners.
she did exactly what i would have done ( and did do when my kids were little ).... having said that there are 3 types of action to take in this order:
1) Positive action, confront head on and either explain or demand
2) Legal action, call the police, get a lawyer involved if necessary
3) Lever action, on my trusty 30-30.... blow the problem away
In lefty US, even the bullies are victims.
Bless God!
If that were to be my child being bullied, I would have to fight HARD the urge to grab the bullying kid by the legs and sling his head into the wall. Maybe it would kill him. It would be a warning to others and keep a future miscreant off the streets.
Too many bullies don’t grow up. They only grow worse.
Fighting back will get you, the victim of bullying, punishments up to suspension from school.
So, the kid knows if he fights back against the bully he will be assessed just as bad as the bully.
If the victim “taddles” he will become an even bigger target from bullies.
The system is set up to punish you if you fight back.
The choice is to either fight back and be punished for protecting yourself of do nothing but being a punching bag for bullies.
Lose-lose.
Faced with those options, what is the child to do.
(Let’s ignore the on-line bravado, talking today’s real world, how is the child supposed to deal with being bullied?)
My wife is a retired diagnostician from the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. She always says that half the kids are incarcerated there because public school did nothing.
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