Boys' reaction to bullying will melt your heart

Boyd Huppert | KARE - TV

Show Caption Hide Caption Boys' reaction to bullying will melt your heart After a group of 5th grade boys noticed a classmate with a learning disability getting teased, they banded together and made him a part of their gang.

All the students at Franklin Elementary in Mankato, Minn. start every day with the Pledge of Allegiance.

But the "justice for all" part belongs to five fifth-grade boys.

"Why pick on someone," Jack Pemble begins to ask, as Jake Burgess finishes his question, "who has special needs?"

They're talking about James Willmert, a fifth-grader from another classroom, with a learning disability. Which, it turns out, can get a guy teased.

Jack and Jake had seen it happening on the playground while hanging out with their friends Gus Gartzke, Tyler Jones and Landon Kopischke.

"They were like, using him and taking advantage of him," Jake explains. "Because he's easier to pick on, and it's just not right," Jack adds.

Which is why Gus, Tyler, Landon, Jake and Jack decided this year they would have James' back.

At lunch, the five boys invite James to their table.

"It really kind of makes you proud to be their teacher," says Mallory Howk, who has spent the year with the five attentive boys in her fifth-grade class.

Howk believes the school's anti-bullying lessons must have struck a chord with the boys, but their kindness has gone beyond even her expectations.

James' mom's too.

"He used to not want to go out for recess or anything, it would be like a struggle," says Margi Willmert, James' mom. "And now he can barely eat his lunch to get outside to play with those guys."

The more the boys play with James, the more they learn about him.

Watch the video above to see the special gift James' friends got him.

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