Mr. Brent de Nat
Principal
Eagle View Elementary School
May 10, 2016
Dear Mr. de Nat,
This message is to follow up on our meeting last Wednesday on May 4, 2016 with you, Ms. McDougall,
Ms. MacDonald and Ms. Gronotte.
My wife and I have both checked our email accounts including spam filters and we have found no emails from Carol McDougall. Please ask her to forward to us the emails she said she previously tried to send us.
We discussed with our son, Douglas, the various issues raised at that meeting. I'll list each one and then what Douglas told us about it. This includes a summary of the incidents discussed already.
1) Allegedly cursing at the teacher. The teacher didn't hear it and other students did not report this accurately. Ms. McDougall says this was reported by two girls and there are two girls in Douglas's class who don't like him (Storm and Ashland), both of whom have kicked him and one hit him twice. Douglas says the truth is that he muttered a profane word after the teacher had left the room. Douglas says he did this in "frustration at the general situation", not specifically directed at the teacher. He has been admonished not to use profanity at all and to stop muttering to himself. What Douglas has told us does not contradict what Ms. McDougall observed since she also said that she did not hear any comment from Douglas at all. Those who reported it even acknowledged that Ms. McDougall had left the room or was going through the door to leave when the incident occurred.
2) Mumbling under his breath. Douglas has been admonished to stop doing this.
3) Taking too much of the teacher's time. We have admonished Douglas about this.
4) Allegedly releasing salmon incorrectly. If I remember correctly, this was not witnessed by any adult, but was reported by children who may be some of the very same ones bullying him. Douglas says that he did follow every step as instructed. Douglas says that the way he released the salmon was in accordance with the instructions he receceived. He says he did not just fling the salmon into the river as reported. He showed us by gestures how he did it and it seems that it was not exactly the way it was supposed to be done, but was much closer to the proper method than to the way Ms. McDougall explained it based on what she heard from other children. The key difference is that Douglas did not put the plastic bag containing the salmon fry all the way down to water level, but sloshed it out into the stream while bending over a bit. He says he thought this was okay. He was not trying to be mean to the salmon and he was not trying to disobey instructions.
5) Allegedly not doing enough school work. Douglas is under the impression that he is doing his school work well enough. This may not be accurate, but he is not refusing to do it. He may just need to understand that more is expected of him than he realizes.
6) Asking about teacher "doing political stuff in class." It is very unclear to us why this question was mentioned in the meeting as a problem behavior. Douglas says that an article was passed around the class that seemed political to him. It had something to do with David Suzuki and made some reference to trying to get kids to become environmentalists because then their parents would have no choice but to become environmentalists. Douglas saw that as political. Environmentalism is, in part, a political movement. The member of parliament for our riding is Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party, a political party founded primarily on the principles of environmentalism. David Suzuki in his speeches -- especially one our family including Douglas attended not long ago -- is very political. He passionately calls for policy changes, gives speeches about how to best accomplish those changes and strongly criticizes political figures for, among other things, adopting policies that prioritize economic growth over environmental protection. The fact that we essentially agree with him on such issues does not make this any less political. Douglas is not hostile to Mr. Suzuki. On the contrary, David Suzuki publicly endorsed the Tetla Project, founded by Douglas's mother and Douglas brought a Tetla Project brochure to class on Earth Day to show Ms. McDougall that it had David Suzuki's picture and enthusiastic endorsement on it .
There is a very real issue, not usually appreciated by nine-year-olds such as Douglas, that public schools are run by the government and in some countries have been used to push views favored by the ruling political parties at the expense of opposition parties or by individual teachers and school administrators to push their own political agendas. Douglas is aware of this issue due to his interest in history and international affairs. When his teacher is showing the students an article that talks about trying to change children's political views in order to change their parents' political views, it occurred to Douglas that this might be the same sort of thing. The purpose of public school activities is not supposed to be changing anyone's political views. Douglas says he merely asked, "Are you allowed to say political stuff in class?"
This is almost the same wording Ms. McDougall reported him using. I don't know the answer, but there should not be anything wrong with Douglas asking the question.
7) Didn't do silent reading. Ms. McDougall said this was an example of "passive aggressive" behavior. Douglas says he did do the silent reading, but he "took breaks" during which he sat quietly at his desk for a little while before resuming reading. He assures us that his motive was not any sort of hostility towards the teacher.
8) Sometimes reads when he's not supposed to. Ms. McDougall said that she caught Douglas sitting at his desk reading a book when he wasn't supposed to. At the meeting on May 4th, she listed this as an example of "passive aggressive" behavior. When asked about it, Douglas said he just wanted to read the book. Douglas said to us, "I enjoy reading, especially books of my choice." He assures us that he was not trying to make Ms. McDougall mad -- which would be passive aggressive behavior. He just wanted to read the book. It seems that Ms. McDougall treats disobedience as passive aggressive behavior. They are really not the same thing. Also, the fact that Douglas actually likes to read some books is a very good thing. It is something we, as parents, have tried very hard to instill in him despite competition for his attention from television, internet videos and video games. The fact that he does like some books enough to disobey the teacher in order to read them is really not such a bad thing. Nonetheless, he has been admonished that when he is at school, he should do what the teacher tells him to do.
9) Allegedly crumpled up First Nations art. That's quite an accusation. It makes it sound like Douglas destroyed a work of art made by First Nations people. Someone hearing this might even suspect him of racist attitudes towards First Nations people if someone did not know that Douglas is a First Nations person, a status Indian (status # 6420432601) and an enrolled member of Cowichan Tribes. Another key fact to know is that the "First Nations Art" according to Douglas was not a painting on display or even a picture being passed around the class. Every student was given a piece of paper with a pattern on it to color in like a page from a coloring book. Douglas says that Ms. McDougall was talking during this and he did not feel that he could listen and do art at the same time. So, he chose to listen to Ms. McDougall
instead of coloring the page. He says that since he wasn't going to use the paper, he recycled it like he's supposed to and he usually crumples up paper before putting it in the recycling bin. If he had colored the page as instructed, the next step would have been to crumple it up and put it in the recycling bin anyway unless Douglas wanted to keep it. When that is described to us as "crumpling up First Nations art", I have to wonder why Ms. McDougall is describing it that way instead of in a more neutral and accurate way. Of course, we believe Douglas is telling the truth on this because he is a very honest person. If that is not true, Ms. McDougall can perhaps provide us with the crumpled up art or just let us know.
10) Calling another boy "stupid". That's it. The only thing Ms. McDougall said to us in the meeting about this incident is that Douglas called Skyler "stupid." Perhaps that is all Ms. McDougall knows happened.
The reason Ms. McDougall knows this happened is because Skyler told her this and only this. He did not mention that he had been repeatedly doing something which Douglas had warned Skyler was very dangerous just to antagonize Douglas. After doing what he knew Douglas thought would be a very stupid thing to do, Sklyer asked Douglas, "Do you think I'm stupid." Douglas obliged and said "yes." Skyler immediately went to Ms. McDougall to report only that Douglas had called him stupid. Sklyer is one of the children who have been bullying Douglas nearly every day. This is not an example of Douglas misbehaving. This is an example of one of the bullies finding a way to use the teacher to bully Douglas further. It is not a single incident, but a frequent pattern that they curse at Douglas, make obscene gestures at Douglas, kick and hit Douglas, knock over chess pieces or the whole chess board when Douglas is trying to play chess with someone and engage in actual sexual assaults against Douglas.
Douglas, despite our instructions to him, almost never reports any of this, but if he responds with even an insult, they report him to the teacher immediately. Ms. McDougall characterized this incident as Douglas engaging in "aggressive behavior".
11) Punching another student. This was rather shocking to us, all the more so when we learned that it was a girl he hit. Douglas informs us that the girl, whose name is Ashland, hit Douglas first. Douglas did not hit her back. Unfortunately, he did not report this as he has been told to. Later in the same day, the same girl hit Douglas again. Douglas at that point hit her back. She is the same girl who has on other occasions kicked Douglas. Douglas certainly did wrong here because he has been instructed to report all violence against him instead of hitting back. But this is most certainly not "aggressive" behavior. Douglas in fact has mostly been far too passive, letting people do this to him and not reporting them. But the wrong that he did was disobeying his parents' instructions, not engaging in "aggressive" behavior. The aggressor in this case is not Douglas. We have also admonished Douglas that hitting girls is traditionally considered wrong regardless of who struck first. That does not mean he should let them get away with it.
He should report them to the teacher. It also does not mean that girls can hit boys all they want and boys can never hit back as two girls in Douglas's class (Trista and Storm) told Douglas. Storm is one of the kids who kicked Douglas.
12) Using middle finger gesture. There is a group of boys who bully Douglas almost every day. The leader of this group is Mitchell. The others are Tristan, Skyler, Tyler and sometimes Mark. The incident in question involved Mitchell yet again saying "F___ you, Douglas" as he has done almost every day and using the middle finger gesture towards Douglas. Douglas made the same gesture towards Mitchell in response. We have admonished Douglas that when other kids use rude words and gestures towards him or hit, kick and very inappropriately touch him, Douglas should just tell the teacher. We have also assured him that if he does this, that the school authorities will make the bullying stop or we will withdraw him from the school.
There is a concept in psychology wherein the person who a family brings in for treatment is referred to as the "identified patient". This is because the person brought in for treatment is often only reacting normally to another person who has psychological issues. Frequently the "identified patient" is actually normal and the psychological problem that needs treatment belongs to a different person entirely. People immersed in the dynamics of that family often cannot see clearly what is really going on or have trouble admitting it because it would jeopardize relationships. Something like that may be happening here.
We don't fully understand the dynamics of Ms. McDougall's classroom, but part of the issue may be that Ms. McDougall does not like Douglas and does like at least one of the kids bullying him. Douglas tells us that a girl named Storm is "the teacher's pet". That could shape Ms. McDougall's perception of what is happening. Storm clearly does not like Douglas and even kicked him at one point. It could be that Ms. McDougall is not willing to doubt the complete accuracy of what Storm and her friends report. Unless Douglas is lying, the version of events presented by Ms. McDougall at the May 4th meeting seems to have been histrionically exaggerated in order to portray Douglas in the worst possible light. We are confident that Douglas is telling the truth. We are also reluctant to suspect Ms. McDougall of doing this deliberately. Though the fact that she had tears in her eyes at one point during the meeting indicates this is an emotional issue for her and not just a professional one. Her tears did not come when describing bad things happening to kids, but when her statements were challenged.
There is abundant evidence that six kids in the class do not like Douglas and bully him, some of them almost daily. Ms. McDougall told us that all the most serious incidents she described and some of the others were not witnessed by any adult and her only source of information is what the other kids told her. There is reason to believe they are not telling the whole truth. Especially since Ms. McDougall's version of what's going on did not mention Douglas ever being treated badly by anyone at any time. It is becoming increasingly clear that the portrayal of Douglas as an "angry boy" engaged in "passive aggressive" and "aggressive" behavior is very nearly a mirror image of the truth. A mirror image in the sense that it's reality, only backwards.
We repeatedly noted in the meeting that almost everything reported about Douglas came from other little kids and was not witnessed by any adult. The reason this matters is that six kids in his class are not only hostile to Douglas, but have been actively bullying him. For example, when I asked Ms. McDougall what Douglas had done that was "aggressive" behavior, she mentioned his use of profanity as "highly aggressive" behavior. She reported that he told her to "f___ off".
When we sought details, she revealed that she did not hear him say any such thing. As discussed in point (1) above, it now seems clear to us that on that occasion he did not say anything to or about the teacher at all. Ms. McDougall's only information on this incident comes from two girls who reported it to her. They are possibly the same two girls who dislike Douglas and have hit and kicked him. Douglas has been admonished that he should not be using such language, but muttering to himself something not directed at anyone and not intended to be heard by anyone is not in fact aggressive. He did use language he should not be using, but he did not say what he is accused of and it's not "aggressive" much less "highly aggressive" as Ms. McDougall mischaracterized it.
We were quite shocked to hear Ms. McDougall accuse Douglas of "fingering" someone, especially when we found out that she was using that term to refer only to raising a middle finger as a rude gesture.
Neither of us has ever heard that term used to describe that and it is generally used to mean something quite different. Despite what was said by Ms. McDougall and the general meaning of that term, Douglas has not been accused of touching anyone in any sexual way, but in fact has been the victim of highly inappropriate sexual touching by the bullies on many occasions.
Nonetheless, Douglas should not be making rude gestures and we discussed this with him. When we inquired into the circumstances of this, Douglas told us (not for the first time) that it has been a nearly daily occurrence that a little boy named Mitchell and a group of his friends sit behind Douglas and mutter, "F___ you, Douglas" over and over again. Douglas responded with the same insult in return and then raised a middle finger at them, provoking cynical laughter, not shock or offense. This Mitchell is the same boy who twice knocked over the chess game Douglas was playing with another child and at least five other times messed up the pieces while they were trying to play. As you know, Douglas has not found it easy to make friends and when he is actually playing with someone Mitchell forcibly disrupts their play over and over again.
Mitchell is also the same boy who twisted Douglas's nipple on five occasions and on twenty or thirty separate occasions slapped Douglas's butt which led to two other boys slapping his butt on several occasions each. We have complained about this previously as it is not only bullying, but constitutes a sexual assault on each and every such occasion. Ms. McDougall says that the problem here is that Douglas raised a middle finger at one point during all this. Maybe that is the only part of it that was reported to her. We have to suspect that the person reporting this was in fact Mitchell or one of his friends and is another way they have found to bully Douglas. They have learned that Douglas doesn't report what they do to him, but that they can cause problems for him by reporting whatever he does in response.
I would not leap to that conclusion only from what has been mentioned so far, but there is another incident (point number 10 above) which was also cited by Ms. McDougall as evidence that Douglas has behaviors that need to be addressed. She reported that Douglas had called another boy named Skyler "stupid." During the meeting, we agreed that he should not be doing that, but when we talked to Douglas about it, we learned the mirror image nature of what was reported to Ms. McDougall by Skyler. There is more to it than was mentioned in point 10 above.
Douglas had been trying to help save Skyler from serious harm by warning him of danger. Skyler mocked him and did exactly what Douglas warned him was dangerous, then asked Douglas, "Do you think I'm stupid now?" Douglas said yes. Skyler then immediately went to Ms. McDougall to report Douglas for calling him stupid. It is obvious to us that Skyler was trying to get Douglas to say that precisely so that he could report it. He is one of the boys who sometimes joins in with Mitchell in his harrassment of Douglas.
In this particular incident, it is worth going into exactly what was going on. Douglas was actually trying in good faith to save Skyler and other children from serious irreparable harm from lead poisoning by warning him not to drink water Douglas had been told by us (his parents) was contaminated with dangerous levels of lead. As you now know, we received a notice to parents from School District 85 saying that water in the schools had been tested and found to be contaminated with lead at greater than the legal limit. It did not say how much more than the legal limit. The schools involved were listed and one of these was "Eagle View Elementary School" the exact name of the school Douglas attends. The notice further indicated that all drinking fountains in the affected schools would be deactivated. We of course assumed all the staff at the school was well aware of this and that this matter was being dealt with. We now know -- but did not imagine at the time -- that there is another school on this island at Port Hardy with the exact same name of "Eagle View Elementary School" and that the school with the lead contamination was that one, not the one Douglas attends. So the lead contamination isssue is very real and very serious, there was just a very understandable misunderstanding about where it was. The misunderstanding was in no way Douglas's fault. We, his parents, told him that there was lead contamination in the water at his school and that he should under no circumstances drink any water from there. Lead poisoning is not a matter comparable to a choice to eat organic vegetables or not as Ms. McDougall later told him and mentioned at the meeting.
Lead poisoning can be fatal and even in tiny amounts causes irreparable damage to the central nervous system, especially in children. It can cause adverse behavioral changes and severe intellectual disabilities. It can cause seizures, coma and death. Lead is toxic to many organs and tissues including the heart, bones, intestines, kidneys, and reproductive and nervous systems. Damage to other organs can heal if exposure to lead stops, but damage to the brain caused by exposure to lead is permanent.
There is no amount of lead contamination, no matter how small, that has been found to do no harm at all. The amount of lead contamination in the water supply -- even in the children's drinking fountains -- at Eagle View Elementary School has been proven to cause serious harm to children which is why such levels of lead contamination in water are illegal. Fortunately for us, that's a different Eagle View Elementary School, but none of us knew that at the time. We are greatly concerned for the health of the many children at the five schools where the lead contamination has actually occurred in School District 85.
Douglas not only had his parents telling him this was going on at his school and saw the official notice to parents from School District 85, he also saw an orange cone similar to a traffic cone placed on the floor near the drinking fountain at his school which seemed to him to be intended to signal that the drinking fountain was not to be used.
Douglas noticed children were using the water and told them that it was contaminated with lead. Skyler mocked him saying it was impossible to be poisoned by water. It apparently never occurred to young Skyler that it is possible for there to be poisonous substances in water as there in fact are at five schools on this island. Skyler began drinking extra water, apparently just to provoke Douglas. Ms. McDougall discussed this with Douglas and informed him that there couldn't be a problem with lead in the water because the school was new and did not have old pipes. This was overheard by other children including Skyler who later moved the cone away from the fountain and declared in the presence of other children that "now it's safe to drink". During all this Skyler, after drinking more of the water, asked Douglas if Douglas thought Skyler was stupid. That's when Douglas said yes and Skyler went to report this insult to Ms. McDougall without mentioning that it was a response to his own question after he had just done something to provoke exactly that answer.
By the time Ms. McDougall was raising this issue in our meeting on May 4th, the only part of this story that remained was that Douglas had called Skyler stupid. Although the lead issue was discussed, we only found out from Douglas that him calling Skyler stupid occurred during that incident or was in any way related to it.
I'm not going to fault Douglas for answering Skyler's question truthfully. Unless you think Douglas is not being honest about this, the problem here is not Douglas calling someone names. Douglas found himself in an extremely stressful situation where his efforts to warn people of a serious danger were met with denial, ridicule and efforts by Skyler to get him punished. Imagine for a moment if this had happened at the other Eagle View Elementary School and the miscommunication wasn't a notice going to parents at the wrong school, but one of the teachers not getting an email notice of the crisis. Would a child there have been wrong to warn the other students? Would a teacher who -- with no inquiry into the matter whatsoever -- told all the kids there was no problem have been in the right? Would a child who removed a warning cone and announced that it was safe to drink the water because he heard his teacher say so have been doing right? Would you blame a child who said that was "stupid" or would that all be utterly irrelevant compared to the fact that children were in fact drinking water with dangerous levels of lead with a teacher telling them it was fine?
We were astonished when Ms. McDougall said at the meeting that she informed Douglas that it was similar to organic vegetables in that each child could choose to drink the water or not, but Douglas shouldn't try to stop others if they wanted to. This is not true. This decision is not left up to individual adults, much less children. The levels of lead contamination at Eagle View Elementary School (the one in Port Hardy) are illegal. The government is using the force of law to prevent people from drinking such water. There is no such law requiring people to eat organic vegetables. Douglas was only using words to warn other children, not forcibly stopping them, but Ms. McDougall incorrectly told him and told us all at the May 4th meeting that Douglas doing so was inappropriate. Based on the information he had at the time, Douglas did the right thing. Yes, he could have refrained from answering Skyler's question, but under the circumstances, we do not fault him for that.
Since the May 4th meeting, Douglas has only attended two days of school so far, yesterday and today
(May 9th and 10th.) That's because he was out of school on Thursday so he could take the test at Uplands for the gifted program assessment. Unfortunately, we were told the wrong date (at our May 4th meeting) and due to our schedule, he had to miss the whole day even after we found out that the test was the following day. Then he missed Friday to actually take the test.
Both days he has attended school since our May 4th meeting, Douglas has been further bullied by Mitchell.
Yesterday, Monday, May 9th, Mitchell again said, "F___ you, Douglas" and gave Douglas the middle finger gesture. This, as usual, was unprovoked by Douglas in any way. Douglas yet again did not report it to anyone, but told us when we asked him after school if there had been any problems. We met with you as you will recall and informed you. You mentioned that efforts were underway to help Mitchell see the error of his ways. You also mentioned that Mitchell would be informed to have no further contact of any kind with Douglas and we instructed Douglas not to speak to or interact with Mitchell unless absolutely necessary. Despite that, today Mitchell came up behind Douglas and touched Douglas's butt again. He did it with his arm instead of his hand as if it were an accident, but we do not believe that it was accidental. Douglas finally did what we have tried so long to get him to do. He immediately reported this to Ms. McDougall. Ms. McDougall treated it like it was unimportant or was just an accident with the result that Douglas, who had just reported it, began to doubt what had really happened.
This is called "gaslighting" after such treatment was portrayed in a film called "Gas Light."
If we had a daughter at this school who was treated this way, would the response from school authorities be the same? Douglas informs us that Mitchell has also deliberately touched the butt of at least one of the girls. Douglas did report this to Ms. McDougall at the time, but he is under the impression that nothing at all was done about it. Mitchell may have touched other students in sexual ways.
We will not tolerate this anymore. This has been going on for months. There are dozens of incidents. We first discussed this with you quite a while back. We discussed this with you again yesterday. We don't blame you. We get the impression that you have been doing all that you can do. Nonetheless, Douglas will not be at the mercy of someone else's problem child. We can withdraw Douglas from school if that is necessary to protect him from bullying and we are prepared to do that as soon as tomorrow morning. But that's not all. If Mitchell touches Douglas even one more time, now that he has been specifically instructed not to by you, we may find it necessary to call the police and have them open a file on this matter and consider whether to file charges. The behavior of Mitchell and his little gang arguably constitutes sexual assault against Douglas and at least one other child at the school. We do of course understand that Mitchell is a child and the legal consequences are very different than if an adult did this, but there are consequences. The school's code of conduct is not the only set of rules applicable here. It seems to us that this child (Mitchell) needs to face some kind of consequences right now. Every time he does this and the consequences are sufficiently undaunting that he feels free to carry on doing it the very next day, his feeling of impunity is strengthened. That is not a good lesson for him to learn and could lead to serious violent criminal behaviors in adulthood. Likewise, Douglas and the other kids need to see that victims are not endlessly at the mercy of those who transgress the rules and violate the norms of civilized behavior. If we want them to have any respect for authority, some authority at some point needs to make this actually stop. As his parents, we can and we will.
Also, every day that this goes on, the narrative provided by Ms. McDougall that Douglas is the problem here because he's too "aggressive" seems increasingly distant from reality. On that note, we requested that Ms. McDougall forward to us the emails she said at the May 4th meeting that she previously sent us. We also requested documentation of any problems with Douglas's behavior at school. She provided us with an envelope which I believe you have seen with virtually no documentation and she did not even comment on our request that she forward to us the emails she said she sent us. As you will recall, Ms. McDougall said at the May 4th meeting that she had repeatedly left voice mail messages for us and sent us email messages at the phone number and email address in the school's records and got no response from us. We never received any such messages. We have both checked our email inboxes and spam filters and those messages are not there. Not a single one. I do not feel comfortable saying so since it implies that what Ms. McDougall said is untrue. As we said at the meeting, it is possible that she sent them to the wrong email address. It is a simple matter to find out exactly what happened. Look at Ms. McDougall's outgoing email folder. If they were sent, they will be there. The dates on those emails will indicate when they were sent and you will be able to see what email address they were sent to. Please have them forwarded to us so that we will know that Ms. McDougall was telling the truth and why the messages were not received. If there are no emails there, please have her send a test message to champion67@yahoo.com. If it can't be delivered for some reason, she should receive an undeliverable email notice indicating what the problem is. It will contain header information showing the route the email was sent along.
We don't want you to think Ms. McDougall is not telling the truth due to a technical problem, but we are even more concerned that you might think we are not telling the truth and actually did receive and ignore numerous messages. It should be easy to find out. Check her outgoing email folder. If you don't have access to it, get her to show it to you.
Sincerely,
Charles and Meaghan Champion