They should be strapped down and their victims allowed to have at it.
My youngest was bullied at the first of his years in middle school. Spoke to the parents, principal, superintendent but the bullying continued. Finally his older brother went to the school, found the two boys outside and told them that if they didn’t lay off he’d kick their asses, and he could and would. The bullying stopped immediately.
One of my kids was continuously bullied in Middle School. Interestingly, the administration (Principal/Vice Principal) really got on it and a few kids were suspended. The classroom teachers could have cared less. Like the teachers in this MA case, those teachers had observed the bullying and provocative behavior but did not intervene.
It eventually worked itself out when said karate-trained son grew to 6’4” while the primary bully stayed around 5’6”
They decided to leave him alone.
I think a distinction needs to be made between bullying by one or two people, and bullying by a larger group. The more people involved, the more pervasive it can be. When I was in elementary school, the “in” clique decided to pick on me. Whether I was in the bathroom, the classroom, the playground, or walking home, one of them was often there. Once a few of them got away with it, it became a sport in which others would join. This is not the same thing as having one kid pick on a child. Group bullying can be a nearly continuous thing from the time the kid steps on school property/gets on the bus until they get home in the afternoon: that’s potentially six straight hours of being bullied.
When it’s one kid, it’s a bad thing and action needs to be taken. I’d favor a suspension. When it’s a group, it’s a cultural thing. I don’t know that that type of attitude can be easily changed.
The cultural issue is a key point. I have raised happy, curious children who take on the world like excited kittens. They are also extremely smart. Both have had bullying issues with the clique. A quick left solves the short term issues (followed by the kid being taken to the ice cream shop on the way home from my visit to the principal’s office after mine got in trouble for fighting back). Clique bullying is harder.
The issue is whether we raise our own children to join in, which is a sign of weakness, or to defend others, which takes real courage. My son noticed that when he defended other victims, that the group backed off on him a bit. Why do most kids follow the bully instead of the victim? Is this more recent or did the greatest generation, for example, do the same thing and they learned courage later?
Regardless, teach your kids to take the brave road, stand up for others who are on the “outs,” and they will be respected/feared by the popular ones in many cases.
Since they are presumably minors, they should be removed from group schools (whether public or private) and receive a solitary education.
If damage is done (i.e. they kill or hurt someone, take their bike or money) then whatever juvenile justice would normally be applied to these crimes should be applied.
But they should be kept out of the general school population until maturity.
I teach in a public school. In my opinion, we could solve a lot of these problems by returning to the disciplinary measures of the past- corporal punishment in grades K-8, and suspension/expulsion in high school. In conjunction with similar action taken at home, it actually at one time helped maintain civilized behavior. In my opinion it would go a long way toward improving public school, instead of half-a$$ed rubbish such as counseling or In-School Suspension.