This is the video Dana Hamrick originally posted to YouTube last Monday about the bullying she endures every day at Truman High School in Taylor, MI.
I know that was hard to watch. It was hard for me to watch. It is so visceral, so painful, hearing Dana describe her situation.
When the video went viral, and it came to the attention of school authorities, they told her to her and her parents to a “take it down.” Now it is back up, and the girl and her parents are making damning accusations regarding the failure of the school’s staff and administration to address the issue of bullying at Truman High School:
“Please understand how your words how I feel?” Hamrick says in her video. “How your words affect people.
“I am sitting here, bawling my eyes out and you tell me to get out of your sight.”
The 16-year-old Taylor Truman High School student says she gets bullied daily and when she tries to tell school staff, she says they don’t take it seriously.
In the video, Hamrick says she has to hide from students during lunch hour because the bullying is so bad.
“One of the vice principals, he would threaten to suspend me for three days because I wasn’t in the cafeteria … getting bullied,” she said.
The school came out with the standard, “we tried to help her, but she refused to cooperate so the student is to blame” bullpuckey. Dana and her mother, however, in their interview with a local TV news outlet deny those charges.
But Hamrick’s mother tells FOX 2 that although she and Dana’s father were alerted several months ago of the problem, they say the school only followed up again after Dana’s video was posted.
The 16-year-old says the school asked her to name the bullies, so she let it go because she didn’t want to get hurt.
“People send their kids to school, it should be a safe environment,”Hamrick said. “I don’t think I’m safe. I don’t feel safe.”
Another parent of a Truman student told FOX 2 that when her daughter got a concussion from a fight recorded on cellphone video a year ago, the school didn’t react – even when she says her daughter warned staff of the possibility of an attack beforehand.
Please go watch WJBK’s video report at this link, which includes footage from the student who was concussed, as well as portions of their interview with Dana.
Here’s the link to Truman High School’s website: http://www.taylorschools.net/truman/
Please feel free to send a polite but firm email to the school’s principal, Melissa Skopczynski, at this address – skopczm@taylor.k12.mi.us – and let her know her administration’s response to a bullied child is unacceptable.
