Parents allege systemic abuse at Ontario school Special By By Farid Abdulhamid Jun 25, 2013 in World Toronto - With Somali-Canadian parents mobilizing against what they state is systemic racism, discrimination and mistreatment of their children in Toronto’s public school system, similar complaints have now surfaced in the York Region District School Board. While many East-African parents are usually intimidated by the school system, Ubah Abshir has taken a bold move to challenge systemic abuse at her son's local school. The frustrated but determined, outspoken Somali-Canadian parent is a lone ranger in a crusade to seek justice for her son and a safe environment for the tormented kid. Since 2008, Ubah Abshir notes her son has repeatedly been assaulted by older boys at Richmond Hill’s Sixteenth Avenue Public School where he is a student. When she demanded answers from administrators, she says the school responded with retaliatory measures against her already victimized son. In the first bullying incident that took place on April 8th 2011, Ubah says her son was assaulted by an older boy, losing a front bottom tooth and left with blood stains on his shirt. Although the incident took place during the morning recess, the school only contacted her five hours later toward the end of day’s classes. She was left in utter shock when the principal downplayed the assault. According to Ubah, the school principal told her the injuries suffered by her son only amounted to “a bad tooth coming out anyway” adding that “it was not a big deal.” Ubah complained to the school superintendent, Ms. Karen Friedman and later sat down with the principal who decided to separate the kids (the victim and bully) and let them play in divided yards. On 16th December 2011, the same bully assaulted Ubah’s son in a far more aggressive incident that left the victim with facial injuries and red spots all over his face. According to Ubah, the Principal shrugged off the incident saying the “kids were just playing soccer and arguing” ignoring the fact that the kids should not have been playing together in the first place. Ubah feels that the school made light of these incidents in bid to frustrate her efforts in resolving this matter. “Rather than address the problem head on, the school was busy engaging in cover ups. In the second incident, my son was left with visible bruises below his eye for two weeks and still, the school did not take action. When I decided to withdraw my son from the school, they realized how serious we were and then they decided to suspend the errant kid for only a day. My son was victimized in two consecutive incidents and all the school could do was suspend the bully for only a day,” said Ubah Abshir. Following the second incident, Ubah had a meeting with Principal Eric Khilji, former vice-principal Geene, and behaviour teacher Ms. Park, hoping that a better solution would be struck to end her son’s ordeal. But the school only offered to enforce the same ineffectual measure—that of separating the two kids from playing in the same yard. Ubah says her son continued to suffer verbal abuse and was tormented a third time on November 22, 2012, when the regular bully in the company of other older boys held her son by the neck threatening to choke him. Alarmed by this new incident, Ubah once again complained to Ms. Freidman, who suggested in a November 23rd 2012 email that Ubah and her husband “sit down with Principal Khilji to coordinate a meeting” with herself, her husband, the bully’s family, the boys and the Police Liaison Officer “to see if some agreed upon understanding can be arrived at with respect to safety and relationship between the boys.” Ubah Abshir didn’t see any sense in the proposed meeting, saying it was merely a diversionary tactic by the school that kept downplaying the gravity of the bullying incidents. “My son is a victim of successive bullying incidents and rather than take the bully and his family to task, the school was asking me to sit with them at the same table. It was a deliberate attempt to put the victim on equal footing with the bully. Instead, the school should have sat down with the bully and his family and the police liaison officer to sanction the culprit. It is clear to me that the school is not willing to admit to the bullying,” noted Ubah Abshir. Worse was to come as Ubah says her son was attacked a fourth time, this time, in an incident involving four boys where her son was turned into a punching bag, beaten physically and left with a swelling on the back of his head. When she demanded an answer, the school dismissed this incident as well claiming her son was simply arguing with a classmate before other boys intervened to break a fight. In this incident, Ubah observes the school could not explain why her son sustained a swollen back head. “Following this grisly attack, my son was taken to emergency with severe headache and remained there for four hours. This time, the Police was involved and officer Kastoon from the York Region made a report. Since my son was kicked with a snow shoe, he wanted to press charges against the four older boys. The Police officer went to the school to investigate. He came back and told me and my husband that it appeared the Principal had orchestrated a story to exonerate the assailants. But the officer later met the boys and their families and warned that there would be consequences for any future incident including the possibility of jail term” said Ubah. In another incident, Ubah says a teacher evacuated an entire class, leaving her son alone in the classroom. She says this created the false impression that her son constituted a high risk element in the company of others adding that the incident left a negative psychological impact on her son. Ubah says she doesn’t understand why her son was subjected to such a distressing evacuation. She noted things kept going from bad to worse because after six years with no anger issues, the school suddenly indicated that her son had anger issues, particularly on the day he was beaten by four older boys. Convinced that the school was unwilling to admit to the bullying, Ubah decided to hire a lawyer to look into the possibility of suing the York Region District School Board for neglect. When the school received a formal letter from her lawyer, Ubah says her son immediately became a target of school retaliation. “After seeking the services of a legal counsel to look into this matter, my son has been singled out for school retaliation. He has been subjected to class segregation where he has been forced to sit separately for two weeks in a corner at a clear distance from other students. He also came under surveillance by current Vice Principal Ms. Welburn, who has even taken a photo of him on her iPhone. I started receiving constant phone complaints about my son from the school” said a distraught Ubah. The tale of segregation: An isolated, window - side desk on the left, where Ubah Abshir's son has been segregated from the rest of class at Richmond Hill's Sixteenth Avenue Public School. UA To spare her son from ongoing physical and emotional abuse and resultant school retaliation, Ubah was advised by her counsel, Roger Love of the African-Canadian Legal Clinic, to request an interim withdrawal of her son from school. The interim withdrawal was put in writing and addressed to the principal of the school. The day after she took her son out from school just before the 2013 March break, Ubah says the Principal responded with another retaliatory measure calling her regarding an essay submitted by her son last November that purportedly carried “violent content.” The essay in question is titled “Cheetah Family” and Ubah questions the timing of this allegation noting that the school should have raised the alarm way back in November if it had concerns about the essay. According to Ubah, the school took a selective approach on this matter dispatching only three paragraphs of the text for scrutiny by the York Region’s Children Aid. After a careful review, Ubah says the York Region Children Aid’s Lisa Butt found no evidence of violent content in the stated essay and immediately closed the file in question. Ubah later took up the matter with her local MPP’s Office in the Richmond Hill riding where she met constituency office manager, Reza Muridi, who in turn advised her to contact Carol Chan, her local School Trustee. She communicated with the School Trustee calling upon the York Region School Board to admit to bullying suffered by her son, racial profiling and school retaliation. “I have given both my son’s school and the York District School Board all the opportunity to admit to the bullying, mistreatment and school retaliation because the racial profiling my son suffered is unjust” stated Ubah. Ubah Abshir has sought legal recourse to end her son's ordeal at Richmond Hill's Sixteenth Avenue Public School. UA On May 19, 2013, another meeting took place bringing together the school superintendent, Ubah’s lawyer, the board’s lawyer, a caseworker from the board, the principal and vice-principal. After four hours of deliberations, Ubah was disappointed that the school still refused to acknowledge existence of bullying, retaliation and why the Children Aid was called in. “The school denied all allegations, nothing was accomplished. Instead, the school offered excuses for every problem; for the bullying, for the retaliation for the class segregation and we were back to square one. My son wants to go back to school and wants to stay in school. All the superintendent would say is that my son should be re-admitted to a different class but the school does not want to admit to the bullying,” said a visibly frustrated Ubah. While Ubah’s son is back in school, the issue of bullying has not yet been resolved. Ubah notes that problems with the school are not unique to her son as other families of color from the Somali; Oromo and Iraqi communities have issues with the same school. She hopes that affected parents would break the cycle of fear and directly engage the school system to look into their concerns. Luma Mohamed, an Iraqi mom in Richmond Hill, has complained that her grade four son who suffers from ADHD has been subjected to mistreatment at the Sixteenth Avenue Public School since he was in grade two. She says his teacher calls her son “dumb” and has isolated him all last year, in which he wasn’t allowed to play with other children. “The teacher treats my son as a high risk, psychiatric, mental case who should not be in class with others. She calls him dumb and stubborn and gives him material below his level. I know my kid is safe to be with others but the school intimidates me and does not allow me to view his file,” said Luma. The deeply worried parent says her child is also a victim of bullying. “There is a kid who has been bullying my son since he was in grade two. He has been hit on the head, knocked down hard on the ground and even broke his eye glasses. All the school could do was to suspend the bully for only two days,” noted Luma adding that her son who also suffers from a heart murmur was kicked out of school for two weeks before the March break. To her utter dismay, the school even ordered her son to undergo suicidal assessment twice despite the fact that doctors have confirmed he is fine. “My son was evaluated by Dr. Urson at the Major Mackenzie Health Center and at Kinark Child and Family Services and the specialist indicated he is fine and does not need treatment. The physician further said it is OK for him to stay in school,” observed Luma. Despite assurances by qualified health professionals, Luma says the school forced her to send her son into an Access Program, placing him in a small class with seven other children. Luma said she had no option but comply with the discriminatory directive because the Vice-Principal threatened to take dire actions against her son including initiating possible charges if she refused to take him into the Access Program. The frustrated mom says she feels discriminated by the school because she wears hijab (veil) and speaks little English. The playing ground at Richmond Hill's Sixteenth Avenue Public School. UA When contacted by the Digital Journal to respond to the parents’ allegations, Vice-Principal Welburn said she needed to confer with her school’s communications department before responding. By the time of going to press, the School did not return the request for an interview while York Region Children Aid’s Lisa Butt declined to comment on Ubah Abshir’s complaints citing confidentiality of file. Following persistent complaints by parents and concerned community stakeholders, Trustees with the Toronto District School Board voted last year to establish a task force aimed at building a coalition of support for the success of TDSB students of Somali descent. The TDSB is expected to implement the task force’s recommendations starting the coming September. Ubah Abshir believes the situation at York Region District School Board warrants a similar action and says she would support the establishment of a task force that can identify underlying problems and confer much needed solutions to systemic barriers in the school system. In an exclusive interview with Digital Journal’s Farid Omar, Mrs. Ubah Abshir, a Somali-Canadian parent based in Richmond Hill Ontario, says her grade four son has experienced persistent bullying by older boys but the school administration has turned a blind eye to her family’s predicament. When she demanded that decisive action be taken against the known bullies, she says the school responded by unleashing further mistreatment against her son. After consistent efforts to resolve the matter with the school fell on deaf ears, Ubah was compelled to hire a legal counsel to address the ongoing bullying and school retaliation.While many East-African parents are usually intimidated by the school system, Ubah Abshir has taken a bold move to challenge systemic abuse at her son's local school. The frustrated but determined, outspoken Somali-Canadian parent is a lone ranger in a crusade to seek justice for her son and a safe environment for the tormented kid. Since 2008, Ubah Abshir notes her son has repeatedly been assaulted by older boys at Richmond Hill’s Sixteenth Avenue Public School where he is a student. When she demanded answers from administrators, she says the school responded with retaliatory measures against her already victimized son.In the first bullying incident that took place on April 8th 2011, Ubah says her son was assaulted by an older boy, losing a front bottom tooth and left with blood stains on his shirt. Although the incident took place during the morning recess, the school only contacted her five hours later toward the end of day’s classes. She was left in utter shock when the principal downplayed the assault. According to Ubah, the school principal told her the injuries suffered by her son only amounted to “a bad tooth coming out anyway” adding that “it was not a big deal.” Ubah complained to the school superintendent, Ms. Karen Friedman and later sat down with the principal who decided to separate the kids (the victim and bully) and let them play in divided yards.On 16th December 2011, the same bully assaulted Ubah’s son in a far more aggressive incident that left the victim with facial injuries and red spots all over his face. According to Ubah, the Principal shrugged off the incident saying the “kids were just playing soccer and arguing” ignoring the fact that the kids should not have been playing together in the first place.Ubah feels that the school made light of these incidents in bid to frustrate her efforts in resolving this matter.“Rather than address the problem head on, the school was busy engaging in cover ups. In the second incident, my son was left with visible bruises below his eye for two weeks and still, the school did not take action. When I decided to withdraw my son from the school, they realized how serious we were and then they decided to suspend the errant kid for only a day. My son was victimized in two consecutive incidents and all the school could do was suspend the bully for only a day,” said Ubah Abshir.Following the second incident, Ubah had a meeting with Principal Eric Khilji, former vice-principal Geene, and behaviour teacher Ms. Park, hoping that a better solution would be struck to end her son’s ordeal. But the school only offered to enforce the same ineffectual measure—that of separating the two kids from playing in the same yard.Ubah says her son continued to suffer verbal abuse and was tormented a third time on November 22, 2012, when the regular bully in the company of other older boys held her son by the neck threatening to choke him. Alarmed by this new incident, Ubah once again complained to Ms. Freidman, who suggested in a November 23rd 2012 email that Ubah and her husband “sit down with Principal Khilji to coordinate a meeting” with herself, her husband, the bully’s family, the boys and the Police Liaison Officer “to see if some agreed upon understanding can be arrived at with respect to safety and relationship between the boys.”Ubah Abshir didn’t see any sense in the proposed meeting, saying it was merely a diversionary tactic by the school that kept downplaying the gravity of the bullying incidents.“My son is a victim of successive bullying incidents and rather than take the bully and his family to task, the school was asking me to sit with them at the same table. It was a deliberate attempt to put the victim on equal footing with the bully. Instead, the school should have sat down with the bully and his family and the police liaison officer to sanction the culprit. It is clear to me that the school is not willing to admit to the bullying,” noted Ubah Abshir.Worse was to come as Ubah says her son was attacked a fourth time, this time, in an incident involving four boys where her son was turned into a punching bag, beaten physically and left with a swelling on the back of his head. When she demanded an answer, the school dismissed this incident as well claiming her son was simply arguing with a classmate before other boys intervened to break a fight. In this incident, Ubah observes the school could not explain why her son sustained a swollen back head.“Following this grisly attack, my son was taken to emergency with severe headache and remained there for four hours. This time, the Police was involved and officer Kastoon from the York Region made a report. Since my son was kicked with a snow shoe, he wanted to press charges against the four older boys. The Police officer went to the school to investigate. He came back and told me and my husband that it appeared the Principal had orchestrated a story to exonerate the assailants. But the officer later met the boys and their families and warned that there would be consequences for any future incident including the possibility of jail term” said Ubah.In another incident, Ubah says a teacher evacuated an entire class, leaving her son alone in the classroom. She says this created the false impression that her son constituted a high risk element in the company of others adding that the incident left a negative psychological impact on her son. Ubah says she doesn’t understand why her son was subjected to such a distressing evacuation. She noted things kept going from bad to worse because after six years with no anger issues, the school suddenly indicated that her son had anger issues, particularly on the day he was beaten by four older boys.Convinced that the school was unwilling to admit to the bullying, Ubah decided to hire a lawyer to look into the possibility of suing the York Region District School Board for neglect. When the school received a formal letter from her lawyer, Ubah says her son immediately became a target of school retaliation.“After seeking the services of a legal counsel to look into this matter, my son has been singled out for school retaliation. He has been subjected to class segregation where he has been forced to sit separately for two weeks in a corner at a clear distance from other students. He also came under surveillance by current Vice Principal Ms. Welburn, who has even taken a photo of him on her iPhone. I started receiving constant phone complaints about my son from the school” said a distraught Ubah.To spare her son from ongoing physical and emotional abuse and resultant school retaliation, Ubah was advised by her counsel, Roger Love of the African-Canadian Legal Clinic, to request an interim withdrawal of her son from school. The interim withdrawal was put in writing and addressed to the principal of the school.The day after she took her son out from school just before the 2013 March break, Ubah says the Principal responded with another retaliatory measure calling her regarding an essay submitted by her son last November that purportedly carried “violent content.” The essay in question is titled “Cheetah Family” and Ubah questions the timing of this allegation noting that the school should have raised the alarm way back in November if it had concerns about the essay. According to Ubah, the school took a selective approach on this matter dispatching only three paragraphs of the text for scrutiny by the York Region’s Children Aid.After a careful review, Ubah says the York Region Children Aid’s Lisa Butt found no evidence of violent content in the stated essay and immediately closed the file in question. Ubah later took up the matter with her local MPP’s Office in the Richmond Hill riding where she met constituency office manager, Reza Muridi, who in turn advised her to contact Carol Chan, her local School Trustee. She communicated with the School Trustee calling upon the York Region School Board to admit to bullying suffered by her son, racial profiling and school retaliation.“I have given both my son’s school and the York District School Board all the opportunity to admit to the bullying, mistreatment and school retaliation because the racial profiling my son suffered is unjust” stated Ubah.On May 19, 2013, another meeting took place bringing together the school superintendent, Ubah’s lawyer, the board’s lawyer, a caseworker from the board, the principal and vice-principal. After four hours of deliberations, Ubah was disappointed that the school still refused to acknowledge existence of bullying, retaliation and why the Children Aid was called in.“The school denied all allegations, nothing was accomplished. Instead, the school offered excuses for every problem; for the bullying, for the retaliation for the class segregation and we were back to square one. My son wants to go back to school and wants to stay in school. All the superintendent would say is that my son should be re-admitted to a different class but the school does not want to admit to the bullying,” said a visibly frustrated Ubah.While Ubah’s son is back in school, the issue of bullying has not yet been resolved. Ubah notes that problems with the school are not unique to her son as other families of color from the Somali; Oromo and Iraqi communities have issues with the same school. She hopes that affected parents would break the cycle of fear and directly engage the school system to look into their concerns.Luma Mohamed, an Iraqi mom in Richmond Hill, has complained that her grade four son who suffers from ADHD has been subjected to mistreatment at the Sixteenth Avenue Public School since he was in grade two. She says his teacher calls her son “dumb” and has isolated him all last year, in which he wasn’t allowed to play with other children.“The teacher treats my son as a high risk, psychiatric, mental case who should not be in class with others. She calls him dumb and stubborn and gives him material below his level. I know my kid is safe to be with others but the school intimidates me and does not allow me to view his file,” said Luma.The deeply worried parent says her child is also a victim of bullying.“There is a kid who has been bullying my son since he was in grade two. He has been hit on the head, knocked down hard on the ground and even broke his eye glasses. All the school could do was to suspend the bully for only two days,” noted Luma adding that her son who also suffers from a heart murmur was kicked out of school for two weeks before the March break.To her utter dismay, the school even ordered her son to undergo suicidal assessment twice despite the fact that doctors have confirmed he is fine.“My son was evaluated by Dr. Urson at the Major Mackenzie Health Center and at Kinark Child and Family Services and the specialist indicated he is fine and does not need treatment. The physician further said it is OK for him to stay in school,” observed Luma.Despite assurances by qualified health professionals, Luma says the school forced her to send her son into an Access Program, placing him in a small class with seven other children. Luma said she had no option but comply with the discriminatory directive because the Vice-Principal threatened to take dire actions against her son including initiating possible charges if she refused to take him into the Access Program. The frustrated mom says she feels discriminated by the school because she wears hijab (veil) and speaks little English.When contacted by the Digital Journal to respond to the parents’ allegations, Vice-Principal Welburn said she needed to confer with her school’s communications department before responding. By the time of going to press, the School did not return the request for an interview while York Region Children Aid’s Lisa Butt declined to comment on Ubah Abshir’s complaints citing confidentiality of file.Following persistent complaints by parents and concerned community stakeholders, Trustees with the Toronto District School Board voted last year to establish a task force aimed at building a coalition of support for the success of TDSB students of Somali descent. The TDSB is expected to implement the task force’s recommendations starting the coming September. Ubah Abshir believes the situation at York Region District School Board warrants a similar action and says she would support the establishment of a task force that can identify underlying problems and confer much needed solutions to systemic barriers in the school system. More about ubah abshir, sixteenth avenue public school, Bullying More news from ubah abshir sixteenth avenue pub... 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