BROCKTON, Massachusetts (AP)—A 6-year-old boy who was suspended after being accused of sexually harassing a classmate transferred to a new school Friday after officials apologized to his parents.
Officials at Downey Elementary School apologized at a meeting Thursday, said the boy’s mother, Berthena Dorinvil.
“They said they learned a lesson, and they said they will go over the rules to change things,” she said.
The boy was suspended Jan. 30 for three days after school officials said he put his fingers under a female student’s waistband.
Dorinvil had called the suspension outrageous and said she couldn’t even explain the accusation to her son because of his age.
Brockton schools define sexual harassment among students, in part, as “uninvited physical contact such as touching, hugging, patting or pinching.”
School officials had refused to transfer the boy, so the parents enlisted the help of an educational advocate.
“I’m pleased that a resolution was arrived at mutually,” Superintendent Basan N. Nembirkow.
This is absolutely outrageous! How can a baby even know what ‘gender’ or ‘sex’ really means let a lone already be ‘labeled’ a sex offender?!
Already adults (society) are saying that unwanted or unwarranted touching will be labeled this way? So how do children play tag, hide-and-seek or any other number of normal games that are a natural evolution to growth??? My gosh NEVER let them play football!!! It’s not that they’ll get physically damaged, it’s that someone will ‘touch’ them!
Isent it sad how oversensitive the world has become? Whatever happened to roughing it in the woods? Now if a six year old who nows nothing about sex and happens to be curious of whats under a girls dress is accused of sexual harrassment.
Not that I am for sexual harrassment.
Does this mean that if I pinch someones arm lightly for being an idiot that its considered sexual harrasment?
Wow, can you image what the boy is going through? Trying to deal with the transition of the changes, and explaining to him he is now going to a new school. What a bloody mess!
A six year old is utterly unable to understand what sexual harassment is, much less why it’s wrong. Or commit it.
I have to at least expand on this statement a little, b/c I don’t think it’s quite accurate. A child knows what is “okay” & what is “not okay”. If you tell them, it is okay to hug & kiss mom & dad, but you should always ask someone else’s permission before you touch them…they will understand. After all, at 6, most kids know it is NOT OKAY to touch the stove. It’s hot. Similiarly, I have been in Sunday School, with 6 year olds who are agitating other children by pulling on their arms, legs, or hair. “Stan, please do not touch anyone else. You should ask before you touch someone,” seems to get the point across. Stan asked Heather if he could touch her hair, and she said no. Stan left her alone & went to play with someone else.
A child may not be able to comprehend “sexual”, but may understand inappropriate. There are rare cases when even a young child is touching another child in an inappropriate way, especially, to be malicious. These cases generally stem from abuse, themselves.
In this case (another board I’m on has been following it since it first appeared in the headlines), the child, while wrong, did not deserve a 3 day suspension. The mother initially commented “How do you tell a child this is wrong?” (Or, something like that…) Everyone on that board thought she just must be stupid if she doesn’t know how to tell her 6 year old to leave people’s clothes alone.
I agree with Maegan, I believe that a child should know by age six what is good and bad. Messing with someone else is “bad”. All you really need to do is tell a child this and it is understood simply.
Though you still can’t go to deeply into why it is “bad,” you just need to let them know that their actions are not exceptable. If anyone remember’s being a child, you never really wanted to be in trouble, because people are angry with you, and it is upsetting. So in turn wouldn’t it just have been simplier to tell him that his actions were bad.
But then again, I do know to many young children who are never taught by their parents not to hit other people and etc. That’s what really makes me angry….
Children under about ten or so are no able to tell right from wrong, and only vaguely comprehend that other people are people at all.
A six year old is utterly unable to understand what sexual harassment is, much less why it’s wrong. Or commit it.
The school officials should be fired.
hmmm, I disagree with this, I think if you are old enough to do something, for instance if a nine year old shoplifts, then you are old enough to face the punishment, fine, they over-reacted in this case, but children usually know if they are doing something wrong, the have a worried laugh or whatever.
