Hello,

We're having issues in our school and are looking for a lawyer to meet with to discuss what our rights are within the AG primary/elementary school system. Our son's therapist recommended we find a lawyer to learn what our rights are, but we do not know how to find someone with the right expertise.

At this point, we are just looking to talk to a lawyer for advice. I do not know if we will go further with it.

Thanks.

Make contact with 'all special kids'. I went to a presentation last year at the Zurich international school and the guest speaker was a lawyer who works in this area of law.

Does your child have a specific disability, illness or learning issue, or a social/behavioural/trauma issue ? In these cases there also might be a Swiss based support/advocacy organisation that might be able to give you some additional support and advice.

Www.allspecialkids.org

My son was in a bullying situation. He's been diagnosed with PTSD from the physical/emotional/mental attacks. We changed schools, but now the principal (who is over both schools) had created a new class and will be bringing the boys who hurt my son to the new school for a class every other week for 2 hours each time. The therapist says its too soon for them to be together. He's getting better, but he has not completely healed from the experience. We need more time to prepare him for future encounters.

Have you seen the school psychologist and also requested a meeting with the principal or written a letter to discuss your concerns?

Did the school address/acknowledge and discipline the bullying situation and were you happy with the solutions /action taken?

I assume this is a new schedule to begin in the new school year? Will your child actually be in a situation where he will have to be near the bullies, or is it just that this will put those children 'on campus' with your child?

How old are the children involved?

I suspect the powerful person in this situation is the principal, the school psychologist and the class teacher. You need all three on your side to have things organised to protect your child and meet his needs.

I must say I find this request very strange! Your therapist should already be very familiar with the situation in AG as regards facilities, your child's rights and the kind of solutions that have been offered in the past in AG. And they certainly should be able to come up with some good leads as to which legal people are best versed in the legal side in AG, from their colleagues if not from their own experience.

This was my experience in dealing with the education system in Bern. so if all your therapist can come up with is 'go see a lawyer', then I'd be very disappointed in the service they are providing.

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"There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living." - Nelson Mandela

We've been emailing and have had meetings in the past. It's been a very awkward relationship to date. We had a school social worker in the last meeting who actually cringed while we read the 3 pages of incidents against our son. They suggested a school psychologist, but we already had someone we were working with that our son liked/trusted and didn't want to "rock the boat," so to speak.

We changed schools because they were not handling the situation appropriately. It was a very rough ride and the attacks were getting worse.

He will be IN THE CLASSROOM with them. They will drive the children from the other school to the new school to have a combined class. The class is every other week for 2 hours. Its a sewing class so the teacher will likely be doing a lot of 1-1 help and not able to carefully watch all interactions between children. In these classes, they usually end up on the playground if they finish early. A lot of the physical incidents happened on the playground int he past.

Next year, they'll all be in 2nd grade.

The principal is the one who thought all would be well if we have an aid for 3 classes to "reintroduce" the boys. I think he's trying to accommodate us, but I don't know that he takes the situation as seriously as we do, even with the report from our therapist. The new teacher doesn't know all the details of what happened, so she's helping where she can. We really like her. The old teachers... well, lets just say we didn't see much progress with the last teachers, which is why we had to change schools.

We've asked for a lawyer recommendation from her as well, but she just went on vacation. I'm very worried about the situation and would like to speak with someone ASAP. She is a very good therapist and has helped our son immensely (not to mention her support with the school). She suggested that she would speak with a lawyer if she were in our situation. I wasn't disappointed at all. It's the first time we've really talked about needing outside help, so she might have just been feeling the waters before she gave us names.

Wow. I contacted them soon after you responded and they already replied with information. Thank you!

I would appeal to the school social worker to sort it out. Are things going smoothly at the new school of have you only just started there? It sounds pretty raw and fresh, it might take a bit more follow up.

Have you told the principal and been supported by the social worker and therapist to advise that your son is not expected to be able to cope with confrontation with these specific children? Was the school able to identify the specific children who are the instigators of the bulling?

My daughter was being bullied and the school removed the child who was the initiator, organising and 'setting up' the other children to act as a gang. They moved him to the other campus with additional support.

It might take time for the wheels to turn, but although I support your choice to use a private therapist, it may mean that you do not have the whole school psychology unit to back you up. I think I would suggest that you write a letter complaining of the situation, carefully worded, and copied to the principal, social worker and school leadership.

Given that it is only 2 hours every second week, with the problem of unsupervised playground issues, would you also be willing to have him excluded from that class? I know it is a big compromise, but it might be an option and you can use that time for other extracurricular or therapy sessions.

The other advantage of using the school channels to do school-related therapy is that the gemeinde can pay for therapy that is approved by the school psychologist. We have had a lot (more than 3000chf) of therapy and assessment paid for by the gemeinde.

In my experience, if you do not have the diagnosis from the school psychologist you will find it very difficult to get anywhere, because that is how the system works. On the other hand once you have that bit of paper things can move very fast - extra budget can be got from the canton, resources found etc... I was truly amazed at how easy everything became once we had that diagnosis!

He's doing really well at the new school. The problems were last Aug - November. We moved him in December. It took over a month to see him starting to come out of his shell again. This has been a long journey.

Yes, the social worker was in the last meeting with us when we read 3 pages of incidents against my son. She's on all the emails we've been sending to the principal. He's hard to meet in person. The therapist is also included in the emails and replied with a report saying he should not be in this situation with these kids so soon. We know exactly who the kids are. The old school only has 4 children. They are bringing all 4 over. 1 is the main boy. Another is his side kick. A third plays very rough and has joined in with the main boy... but I think he'd be ok on his own... a bit concerned with them coming as a group. I don't know the 4th child. I think he/she may be new.

You are very lucky. That is exactly what we wanted, but we were told they did not have enough information to do that. I do know the teacher(s) were not fully on board that things were happening to our son as the other children denied the attacks, even the ones I saw myself. We were regularly told "this is not America," etc.

Yep, that's why our therapist said we should consider a lawyer. While they were being good at communicating to us, we see potential future issues with the solutions being offered, especially after our past conversations/lack of support. The reason we're using a private therapist is because we met with her and had her talk to my son for the initial meetings with the school when they didn't seem to believe that his behaviour problems were directly related to the bullying. (He was hiding/acting out/being a clown/running home, etc) We didn't want him to have to get to know another new person, so we stayed with her to make it easier for him.

Yeah, the principal suggested this. The problem is he is VERY excited about the class. My son has had to do all the changes. The boys who hurt him have not had to do anything. I don't want him to feel punished, yet again, for something that he didn't do. It isn't fair for him. Plus, we're doing our best to build strong relationships with kids in his class because the 2 schools will be united in 3rd grade. We've been working hard to prepare a good social support system for him. We're concerned that if he's pulled out of the class, it'll be another thing that makes him stand out and not bond, does that makes sense?

yeah, its not cheap, but did the best we could at the time :-/

I'll bring this up with my husband and the therapist. Maybe its something we'll have to do. He's doing so well now. I don't know what they would need to know to make the diagnosis. Yes, I'm sheltering him.. but he went through hell and it took months to get him back. I missed him. He was a different child while he was suffering.

If the diagnosis was done by a properly qualified psychiatrist/psychologist then you should not have to repeat the testing, but the school psychologist must refer to appropriate therapy and be your advocate in recommending appropriate changes within the school system. For your son it should not be an arduous process.

Are there really only 5 kids in the class? Is this a special needs group or something else ? Does he have any other developmental or behavioural issues that could be your angle?

And no, the school system is not required to remove the bullying child, but they are required to act in the best interest of both children. In our daughter's case this was an action which removed the bully but also me the bully's needs to get a 'fresh start' as bullying children can get bad reputations very fast which can make it very hard to make things right again.

There are only 4 kids in 2nd grade. It's a tiny school for a couple villages. The entire class will have around 10-12 kids (including 1st grade), I think. My son's new school is larger. There will be about 12 kids in 2nd grade at that school. No, he has no issues, outside of those created by the aggression last year, unless you count German as a second language. His German is coming along really well though. The teachers said that was no longer an issue at school months ago. He's quite bright and we've only received glowing reports from teachers prior to Switzerland. (preschool and Kindergarten)

I wish they had moved the other boy. I cannot believe my son seems to be taking all the consequences from the bullying, and he wasn't even the aggressor! It's all very "bass-ackwards."

Having 2 children who have been to hell and back, and survived, bullying - one in a CH school (also VERY small w/19 children in yrs 1-6, he was one of 2 in the 5th class). and another in a private UK school, I think most people will tell you it is almost always the victim who gets sent to the counselor and left with the problem. Some of the problems originated at his little school,, then reoccurred when there were activities that involved several of the tiny schools dotting the valley, which sounds a bit like what you fear.

The aggressors hopefully don't get away continuing this damaging behaviour, but seldom suffer too many lasting consequences (although in the UK instance a few boys were expelled having maxed out their lists of offenses on various fronts of unacceptable behaviour. I only found this out later and was left with a very heavy heart hopi g those teenage boys had a good safety net to catch them and prevent descent into even more negative patterns) I actually felt the local CH system was far more constructive in trying to work with the involved children so that they better understood how their actions were hurting themselves and the one they hurt. My son can now ski at the local slope without fearing his pants will be pulled down or they will "attack" him verbally. They wave. The school social worker was very supportive and helpful in trying to make an unfortunate situation better without turning to litigious approaches which I think just inflame an already unpleasant situation.

My daughter...we never had a formal diagnosis made - the damaging behaviours that develop in teenagers from excessively stressful situations was enough evidence - but fortunately having a very trusting daughter/parent relationship allowed me to become aware very early and she engaged me. Sometimes we talked about whether or not having someone to talk to who didn't love her would be helpful, but we never quite got that far. Since early years she has gone to more than one educational psychologist for learning related issues and diagnoses, she doesn't need one more thing to make her think there is something wrong with her, as opposed to her contemporaries having the issues. They may be jealous as she is very confident, talented musically and an introspective thinker on issues of the world and life.

I would engage all help the school offers and try to work with them, your son is still young and I would want to try and protect him from developing a "victim" identity.

It is now summer holidays so I think that will slow things down.

Have you brought it to the attention of someone at the kantonal level? If you do not feel the situation is being handled properly at the local level, you should consider escalating it to the kantonal level.

We're not looking to use the lawyer in court right now. We're simply checking what our rights are in case there is pressure to remove the extra person in the class around fall break, which has been hinted at. If there are problems then, we'll decide what to do, such as going up a level, etc. We want to make sure that we're not misguided about what we can/can't do.

If the class is going to be so small- why not see how it goes- but follow very closely and be ready to jump in immediately any trouble starts- and ask the school to monitor very closely too. Allowing your child to go through this with a lot of support, in such a small and easy to monitor environment- could have huge value to him in the long term. If he is doing so well now, both personally and academically- he could well have acquired all the necessary skills to deal with the situation, with support both familial and in school- and the psychologist as well. The other child may well have grown too. I am on our local school board, and I believe you would need to have your child assessed by the school psychologist to be entitled to special measures- but as you well know, each area is different.

2 hours every other week seems ideal for a trial- as long as a very close eye is kept on situation.

He's improving, but he still regresses in certain situations. Academically, he's never had a problem. However, he is still quite sensitive to certain situations, that this could likely trigger.

My concern isn't that they won't be careful initially, but I get a feeling they'll relax and pull the aid, which will leave opportunities. We've received no information that the other boy has improved his actions. We ask and they don't tell. I understand the privacy issues, but I'm not willing to experiment with my son's safety again. We need an agreement and a plan up front. The lack of action last year made me very wary of having support from the school. I'm willing to give them another chance, but with a very short leash.

The psychologist you working with knows why she suggested a lawyer. It's not a threat for the school, to push them, but lawyers efficiently and professionally function as no fuss mediators. You do not want to repeat the scenario you and your kid were in already. If school is interested in protecting both of the parties of minors involved, they will step up their involvement. Which is win-win for the kids.