With Maya Paveza’s permission, she is allowing me to share a Youtube video she released today. I will let the video speak for itself. But it is a horrifying story about one student’s personal journey through hell in Red Clay schools over the past eight years. No student or parent should go through this gut-wrenching hell at all, much less over eight years. I hope Katarina gets the peace and healing she deserves. I will post the other videos in this series. I did the same thing three years ago, albeit in a different format. Only fitting I help another Delaware student tell her story.
The Season Of Myths 
Thank you Kevin for sharing Katarina’s story, the story is all too common in our schools. The reporting procedures do not seem to be followed properly, based on my experience so far. I have learned a lot about the system, one that I had trusted was protecting my child throughout elementary school, and into middle school, but there should have been action long ago. Not only has the system failed my daughter, it also has failed this bully who is obviously emotionally disturbed and needed help early on.
The human need to believe there is good in everyone is one of the most admirable factors in what defines us as humans, but there is a point in time when help is required, and hope may be lost. I watch as the school administration continues to allow this behavior from many students, and they keep hope alive, that is idealistic, but in this era where mental health care has been neglected since the rise of the HMOs in the early 1980s (prime example being Columbine, and it has accelerated since then) – peoples mental health care has been left to doctors who merely prescribe, and no longer psychoanalyze. As advances in medicine now lead us to the whole-body viewpoint and away from the archaic dualism of DesCartes days, we need to understand that stress in our culture is epidemic, and chronic stress does cause immune failures, diseases, disorders, and even death.
Failing to identify and help those that are in need has been the catalyst for the violence and hatred we see in the society. Fortunately there is a movement now to recognize the value of mental, as well as behavioral, health care and treatment.
My daughter had the strength, resilience, and coping skills to endure only so much, but she was losing hope, despite our attempts to get a resolution to the ongoing problem. It was not just Katarina, it was many other students in her grade and at her elementary school. A full-time school psychologist should have easily been able to identify the problem, and likely a welfare visit by the state would have brought help to this bully, and many others.
I am back at school changing directions and studying biobehavioral health as it relates to public health policy and education. It is time for change, and it is time for us to realize sometime the best hope we can have is the hope that we can do something, intervene, intercede and prevent an inevitable outcome.
It is time to put a limit on how much rope we will allow, and what we will tolerate, and bring back more structure, even stricter penalties to those who offend. There needs to be a stricter standard for behavior, our children need this, too much leniency will only lead them to become lost on their way to a productive and positive adulthood.
Thank you Kevin, for sharing this, and for all you do to make Delaware exceptional.
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Hi! MY name’s Stefanie and I have a child in 5th grade at a RedClay public school. Ive lost count of the # of incidents at school where my child’s been a victim of bullying during the past two years! I’ve contacted and voiced my outrage and concern about these attacks on my kid, what it’s doing to her and I’ve explained just how seriously it’s impacting and hurting her. I feel like the employees at this school are NOT doing enough and rather down play it calling it ” normal kids will be kids”… stuff instead of what it really is: BULLYING AND ABUSE! I’m beyond frustrated and I’m looking for any advice or assistance on what else I can do/ who or where can I call or go in order to get help for my daughter and effectively force some change in this school. I don’t know how much more she can take-PLEASE HELP me save this awesome kid from bullying and advise/ suggest what I need to do to make this school care and finally do something to end it. Thank you
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