Leap year day seemed to be a quiet one after what had gone on the days before. Colton came home and seemed OK. He was down, but that had been the norm for some time. No news is good news, or so we thought.
During lunch recess that day a student with behavior problems locked in on Colton. The student was following Colton around and screaming as loudly as he could. Colton is sensitive to loud sounds and would get headaches. It also caused a great deal of stress for him because his ability to process it overwhelms him. He tried getting away from the student, but the student kept following him. Colton admitted that he turned around and said "shut up" to get him to stop. At some point during recess, the student decided to try to kick Colton, but missed. Thankfully, another student saw it and told Colton to report it to a teacher which he did. The teacher told Colton she would speak to the student during her class later in the day. He did not report this to us.
March 1, 2012
Colton came home from school and was very quiet. He became upset and verbally lashed out at us over a very small thing. We knew something was very wrong. When he had problems at school with others he took it out on us. We asked questions and he didn't want to answer them.
We were eating dinner when James said something that made me ill to my stomach. He wanted to look at Colton's head and wanted me to see it. My heart broke when I saw his scalp. I was sick, hurt and angry at the same time. How could someone do this to my child and how in the hell could adults let this happen?
James and I were looking at a very defeated child who probably felt like he wanted to die. James called the guidance counselor at home at 7:00 P.M. and told him what happened at school. The guidance counselor told James over the phone that he could not see the student doing something like this without provocation. Notice the statement earlier about behavior problem. Here is the email that was sent to the guidance counselor, principal, school therapist, and blind copied to the school superintendent.
Here are the pictures of Colton's scalp. We attached photos to the email that was sent.
As you can tell his scalp is red and very raw. The cause? The student that followed Colton around the day before screaming and then tried kicking Colton followed him into math class. When Colton sat down the student grabbed a handful of hair and said "shut up." Colton did not do anything, say anything or even wince. No one else knew it happened, because they were the only two in the room at the time. Colton also admitted that the same student had been bothering him the day before. The school therapist pulled Colton out of this class and she did not see the red marks and she claims that she did not know anything was wrong that day.
As you can read by our email, we were very worried about Colton's safety at school and knew things were escalating. The two students involved in hurting Colton hung out together, so we were not sure if it was retaliation or strange coincidence. Obviously things were happening at school and it was the cause of the behavior we saw at home. No one at the school saw a change in him or his behavior during this; at least that was their claim.
We took Colton to school the next day and spoke with the guidance counselor and principal. What happens next will be coming up. It only continued to prove that things could get more crazy.
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