It’s every parent’s worst nightmare to learn that their kid is being bullied at school. Especially an expensive private school that’s supposed to provide children with a “wholesome learning environment.” But one Texas mother’s nightmare became a horrific reality when her 12-year-old daughter returned home from a field trip with gruesome rope marks on her neck.
Sandy Rougely is suing Live Oak Classical School in Waco, Texas, for $3 million after the school essentially blamed her daughter’s injuries on boys being boys. Per Rougely’s lawsuit, her daughter, identified only as KP, was on an overnight trip with 20 other students to a Texas ranch last April when the incident occurred. While on the ranch, KP and her classmates came across a long rope swing tied to a tree. Court documents state KP was standing near the rope swing when three boys — including one who had allegedly been bullying her for a year — wrapped the rope around her neck and violently yanked her backwards and to the ground.
The attack caused the sixth grade student to sustain horrifying burn marks that Rougely described in a recent interview with Dallas Morning News as “someone ripping [KP’s] neck apart and stitching it back together.” Instead of being taken to a local hospital, KP was simply given Vaseline for her rope burns and Motrin for the pain, per the lawsuit. Rougely also claims she wasn’t even notified about the attack and had no clue until her daughter came home.
In a previous statement, Live Oak Classical School said the marks were “caused accidently” when students were playing with a rope swing. Evidence presented with the lawsuit notes an email the school’s principal, Allison Buras, wrote after KP had been bullied previously. “It sounds like he may have pushed on the back of her leg to make her leg buckle, which is something the kids sometimes do,” Buras wrote. “Rarely is that done out of meanness, but more out of a desire for sport.”
Rougely’s attorney calls KP, a black student, being dragged by a rope around her neck by three white students, racially motivated. “Based on the injuries KP sustained, it’s nearly impossible to argue that this was somehow an accident that could have happened to any child that day, regardless of race,” he said. “The severity and the specificity of the injury certainly point to this incident being racial.” The lawsuit also notes KP was just one of two black students on the trip.
Rougely has already pulled KP out of Live Oak Classical School.
Warning: Graphic content ahead!
(Via The Daily Beast)