511 Jester Ln
Charlottesville, VA 22911

We brought our children into the Albemarle School district thinking it was going to be a positive experience for us all. However, Baker Butler deals with bullying in a very different way than we expected. In Fourth grade my son was being constantly bullied as the new kid. Multiple times he went to his teacher about this. When the bully would come in the morning and smack my child on the back of his head on his way to his seat, the teacher would simply raise his newspaper everyday as to not see it. As the assaults got worse, being pushed into fire alarm boxes on walls, pushed down, etc., and we complained more, we were told it was a 'complicated' situation and this kid has been doing this for years. During recess, even though all the teachers knew about the bully, the teachers would pretend not to see what was going on. My child would watch as this kid would get rewarded with legos on days he behaved, and when he collected 5 legos he got extra privileges that other well behaved students did not get. He would take his lumps and then see the principal give him high-fives at the end of the day, while my childs concerns fell on deaf ears. Once when my child did defend himself, he was reprimanded for 'retaliating'. The next year my child was getting smacked around on the bus. He did not want to get in trouble for 'retaliating' again so he did nothing for months. When he couldn't take it anymore, he turned around and told the other child to stop or he was going to get it. My child was then punished, humiliated, and sent to sit with the little kids in the front of the bus. I contacted the principal, the bus driver and the head bus driver to ask that the bus tapes be pulled to show them that my kid was being assaulted for months. Since the cameras on the bus were broken, there was no proof that my child was being hit. That school almost glorifies bullying, kind of like you either bully or get bullied, and they don't respect the ones who get bullied. If I could pull my other child out I would.