It is 11 seconds caught on video that a Squamish mother could hardly bear to watch.
In it, one student stomps on another’s head in a common area of the school.
A teacher is heard yelling, “Stop.”
A student bystander yells, “F--k him up,” to the youth doing the stomping.
Several students watched the altercation, and at least a few recorded it.
The Squamish Chief is keeping the names of those involved and some identifying details confidential to protect the minors.
Squamish RCMP confirmed they responded to an incident at a Squamish school last year.
The BC Prosecution Service confirmed to The Squamish Chief on June 29 that an assault charge has been approved against one youth for the incident.
No other information was provided.
“He had been bullied since the day [he] walked through the door,” says the mom of the teen who was stomped.
"In one incident, he got kicked so hard in the shins he couldn’t walk.”
These incidents involved students other than the youth who was charged.
The parents of the boy who was stomped are going public after what the mother says was a frustrating school year of the situation being bungled time and time again, leaving her and her child feeling vulnerable and frustrated.
The mother says the system needs to be fixed for all kids in the community so that better checks and balances are in place.
She objects to how the school administration handled the situation.
While the teachers and counsellor were supportive after the stomping incident, the school’s administration was “flippant,” the mom said.
She says that after the altercation, her son was kept at the school for about two hours as administrators tried to get to the bottom of the situation, instead of immediately having him seen by a paramedic.
His mom later took him to the hospital. He had a concussion and an injury to his nose.
“When he texted me and said, ‘I got jumped.’ I’m thinking, okay, he got in a tussle. When I found out what really had happened, it’s like the ambulance should have been called right away. I mean, his head was stomped, repeatedly. That’s not something that you trifle with," the mom said.
She also says though she is the top person on the contact list for her son, it was his father, who was working in Vancouver, who was contacted. She found out from her son’s text.
As is the protocol for media writing school-related stories, The Squamish Chief reached out to the school district about this incident.
Asked to respond to 14 questions from The Squamish Chief about the incident, the repercussions and the protocols in place to deal with violence and video recordings of it in Sea to Sky schools, School District 48 sent the following statement:
“The Sea to Sky School District prioritizes the safety and well-being of all students in our care. We encourage parents and caregivers to work with their school principal around any questions or concerns about their child’s well-being at school. Our policies and practices regarding student behaviour, including codes of conduct, are found on our district and school websites.”
Among other specific questions about the incident, the school district did not answer: How many adults monitor the school and grounds during daily breaks and how many times police have been called to local schools.
The mother says that the family isn’t clear on what, if any, actions were taken to change the culture at the school so that situations like this don't happen again.
She doesn't want other kids and their families to go through what hers has, she said.
She said the family feels like they have been treated at times with disdain by the school administration and their son has been spoken to at the school by administrators as if he is the problem.
“Every single step of the way. It kind of feels like, ‘Who’s the victim here?”
Luckily, she said, her son has a lot of good friends who have rallied around him since the incident.
Squamish RCMP told The Squamish Chief that they “continue to work with youth in all of our local schools on issues such violence, bullying, cyberbullying and consent. Our officers work with youth, both in the schools and on the street, to provide guidance, leadership and build rapport. Youth engagement remains a priority for the RCMP,” said Cpl. Ashley MacKay in an emailed statement.
Stats on how many times RCMP officers have been called to local schools were not available from law enforcement.
The Squamish Chief has filed an Access to Information request (ATIP) to see if we can obtain these facts that way.
This process can take weeks or months.
Ministry of Education and Child Care
The provincial Ministry of Education and Child Care told The Squamish Chief it takes incidents of violence very seriously.
“There is no place for violence, bullying or any kind of harassment anywhere in our society – especially in our schools — and it is not tolerated,” reads a statement from the Ministry.
“All of B.C.’s school districts and independent schools have codes of conduct in place that align with the BC Human Rights Code to ensure schools remain free of racism, discrimination, bullying, cyberbullying, harassment, intimidation, threatening or violent behaviours.”
The Ministry also pointed The Squamish Chief to its Erase strategy, which sees designated safe school co-ordinators in every B.C. school district and independent school to respond to student safety issues, including to build the capacity of schools to prevent and respond to safety incidents.
The province contracts Safer Schools Together to deliver aspects of the Erase strategy.
“Individual school districts and schools know their communities best and lead the response to student safety incidents, bringing in community partners when needed. Individual districts and schools determine if and how to track safety-related incidents and can work with the Ministry to respond to increases in these incidents if needed.”
The Ministry tracks the number of issues reported to the Report It Tool of the Erase website. Over 2,800 incidents have been reported since 2012, with over 1,500 since 2018.
- The top three issues reported in 2021/22 school year have been:
- Bullying/cyberbullying
- Racism/discrimination
- Harassment
- The number of incidents reported routinely fluctuates across school years; violence/fighting have been reported more frequently in 2021/22 than in 2020/21.
What matters most to the Squamish boy’s mother is that this kind of thing not be taken lightly. It is serious and scary, she said.
“In no world and no civilized society can what happened to him be justified... That’s not the way that we handle things. So that’s really what sort of spun my head.”
