Bullying Forced Family to Take Student Out of Lakeland School

Alexander (Alec) Browne was a happy-go-lucky kid with a friendly personality. He got along well with other children and never had any disciplinary issues. He enjoyed school.

That all changed in third grade at Van Cortlandtville Elementary School in 2013 when his mother, Michelle, said he was harassed by another student during lunch time, at recess and in the classroom.

“Alec didn’t want to go to school,” Michelle Browne said. “The kid pushed Alec and hit Alec in the back. It just escalated.”

She claimed Van Cortlandtville Elementary School Principal Jacqueline Woodruff defended the other student, so in November 2013 Browne and her husband, Neal, successfully had Alec moved to another third-grade class in the school, and the alleged bullying ceased.

During that same year, Alec was afforded accommodations under Section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which provides students with special learning needs extra time to complete classroom work and tests. Michelle Browne noted she had sought those accommodations for Alec since he was in first grade.

There were no problems in fourth grade, but in fifth grade, the alleged “intentional bullying” as Michelle Browne described it, resurfaced, this time from a different student, in and out of the classroom. She claimed the student would sit in front of Alec’s desk and make noises, making it difficult for him to concentrate. During lunchtime, the student flicked a cup at Alec, and would say “mean things” to him.

“Alec told me he’s driving me crazy. I can’t focus. He’s pushing me over the edge,” Browne said. “I’m at my wit’s end. He’s (Alec) telling me this every day. From September on he didn’t want to go to school. It was a struggle to get him to go.”

During the same time, in mid-October, Alec began pulling out his hair and would constantly cry at night. When Browne alerted school officials about the issues Alec was facing in school, she said she was told she was the only one complaining. Browne said Woodruff also told her Alec was “too sensitive.”

Following another alleged bullying incident in school, Browne received an e-mail on October 28 from Frank Yanoti, assistant principal at Van Cortlandtville, who stated, “We definitely hear your concern. Please know that Ms. Woodruff and I are investigating this and that we have already spoken to the other student.”

The next day, Alec returned home on the bus very upset, Browne said. Alec told her he had “been pushed way past his limit too many times.” Frustrated, Browne demanded a meeting with Woodruff and Yanoti, relayed her concerns the situation was getting worse and asked for an investigation.

That meeting triggered a Dignity For All Students Act (DASA) investigation, which requires staff to view all video of any occurrences where Alec and the other student were together.

On October 30, at about 3:30 p.m., Browne said Woodruff asked to speak with her in the main office and told her the other student admitted he was intentionally making noises and saying and doing things to annoy Alec, and there was an “overwhelming amount of video” of the student bothering Alec.

Browne, who was an active volunteer at Van Cortlandtville, said Woodruff apologized to Alec and told him “she is on his team.” Browne said Woodruff shook Alec’s hand and told him she was going to fix the problem.

“When our children go to school, we trust and believe our school staff are there to nurture, protect and educate our children,” Browne said. “We blindly entrust them, with our most precious beings – our children.”

According to the anti-bullying organization Stand for the Silent, 60 percent of fourth- through eighth-graders report being victims of bullying. More than 55,000 children have committed suicide in the last seven years due to being bullied.

Browne alleged the DASA investigation led to a series of “intimidation and retaliation” from Lakeland officials, and she and her husband accused the administrators at Van Cortlandtville and district offices of violating their rights, “using official resources to punish” them. She said it started with an unnerving phone call on October 30 from Phil Kavanagh, director of guidance for Lakeland and the district’s DASA coordinator.

“Our child suffered. They did this to our child. They did this to our family,” Browne remarked. “They used our child to retaliate against us, with implied threats and intimidation. We could not understand why.”

On November 5, the DASA investigation by the district determined any alleged DASA violations were unfounded.

The findings, in part, stated that an interview conducted by school psychologist Kristen DiGenova of Alec, which Browne said she was not informed of prior, “did not show evidence of his experiences with the other student to be of a severe or pervasive nature, and the student’s actions did not demonstrate a substantial disruption to his well-being.”

The Brownes questioned the validity of the DASA probe and requested the investigation be re-opened, maintaining Kavanagh and Yanoti based much of their findings on a teacher who was out injured for several weeks and two substitute teachers.

“My concern at this present time is that your son has been engaging in self-injury as a means of coping with circumstances that he has deemed as stressful,” Kavanagh wrote in a November 9 e-mail to the Brownes. “This is a serious matter which requires prompt attention through a home/school partnership. Our goal at this point is to collaboratively work towards helping Alex to identify more effective coping skills.”

A written appeal of the DASA investigation was made by the Brownes to the Lakeland Board of Education. On November 19, the board upheld the findings, and in a November 20 letter to the Brownes, Superintendent of Schools Dr. George Stone stated Woodruff and Yanoti offered to move Alec to another classroom of their choosing.

However, the Brownes, whose oldest son attended Lakeland schools and graduated from Walter Panas High School in 2011, were disgusted with the whole process and made the decision to remove Alec from the district and place him at St. Patrick’s Catholic school in Yorktown, where he started on November 30 and has returned to his old self, according to Browne.

“He is back to normal. He is laughing. He’s happy going to school,” she said.

While insisting Woodruff, Stone and other administrators in the district should be “disciplined for covering it up,” Neal Browne thanked Woodruff for allegedly admitting that Alec was being truthful about being harassed.

“I think we should thank Woodruff for having the guts to tell us this was going on. It woke us up as parents,” he said. “They’re doing it to so many people. We took it in our hands to take him out.”

Other Students Bullied

Michelle Browne alleged Alec’s bullying experience was not unique, saying she knew of another family that had taken a child out of Van Cortlandtville this year and another that yanked a student out of Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School. She also maintained there were other families who had students being bullied who were afraid to speak publicly.

“I’m not the only one who has taken their kid out of school because of bullying,” Michelle Browne said. “If they have done this to me, they can do it to anyone. They should have addressed it and tried to fix it.”

Stone vehemently defended the actions of Woodruff and her staff at Van Cortlandtville and other district officials who he said spent “extensive time” doing a “full and thorough investigation.”

“We went through all the DASA procedures. They fully investigated. They fully processed everything they had,” Stone said. “They provide all the services they possibly could. They care deeply about every child in that school.”

But the Brownes maintained the Board of Education was not given all the information available with Alec’s case, especially the video recordings showing the alleged bullying. Michelle Browne submitted 29 pages of further documentation to the board on February 18 hoping it would overturn the DASA investigation findings, but was notified last week the board was standing pat.

“Given the fact that no new information has been provided by you, the decision of the board at the November 19^th meeting stands as rendered,” board President Carol Ann Dobson wrote in a February 24 e-mail to Michelle Browne.

The Brownes have reached out to Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York State Office on Open Government, for assistance in getting the district to comply with all Freedom of Information regulations.

A federal civil rights organization has also taken on the case to review if Lakeland violated the rights of the Brownes under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act, although no legal proceedings have been initiated.

“So, why haven’t I stopped? I love my child. Because I never want any parent advocating for their child, to feel backed into a corner, feel helpless or frightened by retaliation,” Michelle Browne said. “As parents, as taxpayers, this is our community. These are our schools. When did we say anyone working for our schools or someone we have voted into a position has the right to take away our power to advocate for our child.”

Meanwhile, Stone maintained bullying was not rampant in Lakeland schools, and children being taken out of district schools were rare.

“I think if you survey our parents and students they would overwhelmingly say our schools are nurturing, positive and supportive environments,” he said. “I think we’re doing an outstanding job dealing with this type of issue. It’s rare that (a bullying) complaint comes to us. When it does we take it very seriously.”