Lincoln County parents address school bullying concerns

LINCOLN COUNTY, Ky. (FOX 56) — Parents from Lincoln County Schools said their children are being bullied. From prevention to punishment, they said enough isn’t being done at the administration level.

On Wednesday, some of those parents took to the Lincoln County Board of Education’s District Advisory Committee to raise their concerns.

“Right now, the system’s failed all of us, so what are we supposed to do?” one parent asked the committee.

“One child committing suicide is too much, and there are too many kids doing it now for this simple fact,” another parent added.

Wednesday’s meeting was the second one for the newly created committee.

From the stories parents shared, the bullying their children experience at school has, in some cases, followed them home.

One mother stood up and talked about her seventh-grade son’s emotional trauma from being bullied.

“We tried everything. Now, he has a really bad anxiety issue from being around other kids. We take him to the open house, and he shakes like a leaf. Now, he’s medically homebound,” she said.

“The girl that assaulted my daughter was suspended for a day. And my daughter ended up with a fractured nose,” a father added.

These parents said bullying is a problem at the middle school, and when the problems have been reported, they haven’t been properly handled.

“What we want you to say, ‘We took care of the bully; they got suspended. We took care of the bully. They got a not home,’ not ‘We investigated; we did what we could,'” said Cortney Reed, who has a son in sixth grade.

Reed’s son is now homeschooled, but she said he still has to go to school for one hour, Monday through Friday for his English class.

But Reed said after one of the bullying incidents involved kids throwing objects at his head and calling him a derogatory term, she’s still “worried about him being attacked” in the school building for that one-hour time slot every day.

The response from the committee was a promise to make things better.

“I’m willing to use my voice in whatever way I can to reassure you that we’re going to fight for your kids,” said committee member Nehemiah Wilkinson.

But the committee pointed out that the changes can’t happen overnight.

“Just be patient with us. And I know it’s hard sometimes to be patient, but again, it’s going to take us some time to get this all looked at,” said Bruce Smith, superintendent of Lincoln County Schools.

Phillip Coots is a school board member but is not on the committee. He said his children were bullied in the past as well. He hopes the district can find a path forward.

“We as a district have to do a better job of making sure that our children feel safe and that the parents of those children feel safe. And it takes trust both ways,” said Coots.

Parents were encouraged to fill out a “community input form” with their concerns and suggestions for change. The forms will then be reviewed for the next committee meeting, which is set to take place at 4:30 p.m. on April 30.