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Mom Demands Answers After Bullying Forces Son Out Of School

WOODLAND (CBS13) — After months of bullying, a Woodland mom removed her child from school for good, and she's now bringing her concerns to the district level.

At a school board meeting on Thursday night, Trina Stabler put pressure on Woodland Joint Unified School District and school officials to do more to stop bullying and protect its students.

Tina Stabler says the bullying has been going on for months, but when her son came home last week with visible, physical injuries, she'd had enough. She's calling on the district to step up and handle bullying complaints in a more effective way.

"I don't want to have to worry about them every single day," said Tina Stabler.

It was a tough decision for the Woodland mom to take her 9-year-old son out of school, but not as hard as it was to see him bruised and battered she claims at the hands of a bully, who has harassed and assaulted her son before.

Until Monday, Stabler's son attended Woodland's Whitehead Elementary. She says the campus has a lack of supervision and school officials appear to brush off reports of bullying.

"I never got notified about any of these incidents at all, none of them," said Stabler.

Thursday, she addressed the district at a board meeting for what she says is its failure to address bullying the right way. Another mother spoke as well, suggesting the district work to get the parents of bullies involved.

"Document each time that student gets in trouble. Maybe after three offenses that parent has to come to a parenting class to teach you how to not bully, and then I bet bullying would stop," said one mother.

Whatever the approach, the parents say the district needs to do more, and until it does Stabler says her son will stay home where she knows he'll be safe.

"It needs to be dealt with because this is how kids commit suicide and their lives are destroyed because no one is doing anything about it to protect them."

District officials said they couldn't release information on specific cases but did say in part, "The district is committed to resolving issues of bullying as quickly as possible to minimize disruption to the educational process. With any incident of bullying that is reported to any adult staff member, we follow the process of our policy and investigate the alleged incidents."

The bullying issue was not on the agenda for the meeting, so board members didn't weigh in. Stabler says she'll bring her concerns to those meetings from now on until some formal changes are made.

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