Mother speaks out after son’s head pushed into toilet

The mother of a 12-year-old boy is speaking out against bullying after her son had his head forced into a charter bus toilet with feces in it during a school field trip.

The incident happened on June 3 when Grade 6 students from Waverly Park School were returning to Brandon after spending the day in Winnipeg for a Goldeyes baseball game and museum tour.

Laura-Lise Yaciuk, the child’s parent, said her son came home “distraught” and explained two boys had thrown someone’s hat in the toilet at the back of the bus and made him fish it out.

“I can’t stay silent,” she said.

“If they’re getting this bold to do all of the rattiness that happened … they’re gonna hurt somebody.”

The boys had also smeared used toilet paper across his face and dunked a water bottle into the toilet before using it to flick feces at others seated in the back of the bus, she said.

“As sad as he is that his classmates have gone through it as well, I think it helps to know that he wasn’t the only one it happened to,” she said.

“He’s missed a lot of school the last few days. I don’t make him go to school if he doesn’t want to, and if he does, I take him to the door and pick him up from the door.”

Yaciuk said it disturbed her to know the incident wasn’t immediately addressed. Her son told her that students had informed teachers seated at the front of the bus, including the school principal, about what happened but the incident was brushed off.

She said staff had later come out and explained they weren’t aware of the situation.

Yaciuk has concerns about why a seating plan wasn’t implemented on the bus after hearing many students were getting rowdy and why supervision wasn’t spread out to prevent issues from occurring.

Yaciuk said she was expecting to receive a phone call from the school about the incident, but there was no communication.

She contacted the Brandon School Division, and when she didn’t get a response after three days, she reached out to school board trustees, who immediately put her in contact with the superintendent.

“It’s gross enough and kind of serious enough that I was, like, ‘I don’t really want it brushed off’” or dismissed as “boys will be boys,” she said.

Yaciuk said she had a phone call with the assistant superintendent to discuss the situation.

“She had the vice-principal and the guidance counsellor start an investigation, and over the next two days, more and more information came out.”

She met with the school’s vice-principal a week later to talk things through, but in the meantime, her son was still being teased, she said.

“They’re picking at him, they’re calling him names, or they’re, you know, just bugging him,” she said.

A spokesperson for the division said staff reviewed the incident and determined that a group of students had “engaged in inappropriate and harmful behaviour,” a statement said on Tuesday.

“The investigation found that several students participated in actions that included teasing, physical intimidation, restricting movement within the washroom and encouraging another student to interact with items placed in a toilet.”

The spokesperson said appropriate disciplinary and restorative responses were implemented in accordance with the division policies, and support was provided to the affected students and families.

While the school division’s response wasn’t immediate, Yaciuk said she is happy with the steps that are being taken.

The school will receive an additional educational assistant, implement anti-bullying programming and plan student class placements for the upcoming school year to minimize future conflict, the division said.

The school is also reviewing administrative procedures for investigating and responding to student discipline and supervision practices for field trips.

Yaciuk said the anti-bullying programming will give students the tools to support their classmates and learn how to stand up for themselves. Having an extra pair of eyes in the classroom next year will also be “huge,” she said.

Teachers need to respond to incidents quickly when they first happen and treat them seriously, Yaciuk said.

“As long as they follow through with that, I think it’s a good start.”

She said her son has been bullied at the school for the past three years and recalled a time when one of the bullies involved in the recent incident had vandalized her son’s bike at school.

“He had ripped the handlebars off, and the only reason why they believed (my son) is because it was on camera,” Yaciuk said.

Her son has stopped telling teachers about the bullying he experiences in school because he believes nothing is done to address it, Yaciuk said.

Whenever she spoke to the school principal, her son told her the bullying would get worse.

“He’s a very social kid,” she said.

“He loves to think the best of people, so I think it’s hard for him that someone would be mean like that.”

» tadamski@brandonsun.com