The morning of March 13 will long be remembered by the Wood family of Henderson, Ky., as the moment everything changed.
That was the day the youngest of the family's four daughters received a racist, threatening message in her student e-mail account at Henderson County North Middle School.
The message, which appeared to have been sent from a computer at nearby Henderson County High School, was peppered with racial slurs, references to the KKK and threats of violence against the 12-year-old seventh-grader and her older sisters.
"All I got to say is that you better watch every move you make NIGGER and you can tell all of your older sister(s) the KKK will be after them (too) BITCH," one line of the e-mail read.
"We couldn't believe it," said Carla Wood, the girl's mother. "I thought, 'Oh my God. Who would say something like that to a child?'"
Even harder to believe, Wood said, was the school's initial handling of the incident. Even though a teacher was promptly notified about the e-mail, Wood said no one from the school called to inform her that her daughter had received a threatening message. She didn't learn about the e-mail until that evening, when her daughter showed her a copy of the message.
"My daughter sat at that school all day -- afraid," Wood said, her voice cracking. "No one thought to call her parents about what happened to her. Nobody hugged her; nobody asked, 'Are you OK?'"
Wood said when she arrived at the school the next day to discuss the incident with school officials, the principal hadn't yet been told about the e-mail.
Wood claims even after the principal was made aware of the incident, several days passed before any real action was taken. Additionally, Wood said school officials told her she could not contact the police until the school completed its own investigation.
A Common Problem
Though more serious than most cases, what happened to Wood's daughter is not uncommon in today's middle and high schools, where cell phones, e-mail, instant messages and Internet blogs and chatrooms often are used to degrade, harass and threaten students.
The practice is called cyberbullying, and while prevalent, many parents and schools know little about how to prevent and respond to it.
According to a 2005 Clemson University study, about one in five of 3,700 middle school reported they had been cyberbullied in the past two months.
"Cyberbullying is an issue of concern that is growing exponentially," said Nancy Willard, cyberbullying expert and executive director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use. "I think adults, parents and teachers included, aren't paying attention to what young people are doing online."
Willard said adults often are lulled into a false sense of security when it comes to young people's online activities.
"There is a very damaging false sense of security that the installation of filtering software has addressed the dangers and loose use of the Internet," she said. "That really isn't the case."
Willard added that for many schools, a lack of clarity about free speech sometimes causes confusion over what school officials can and can't do. Many administrators simply do not understand the steps they can and should take to address the problem of cyberbullying and cyberthreats in their schools.
In the case of the Kentucky incident, Willard said school officials should have taken these steps to respond to the threatening e-mail:
- Make sure the e-mail or other evidence has been saved.
- Evaluate the message for degree and severity of threat. Any imminent threat, as was the case in the Kentucky incident, should not only trigger a call to parents, but a call to police.
- Take immediate steps to investigate who sent the e-mail or posted the material, keeping in mind that cyberbullies often use anonymous screen names or impersonate someone else when harassing other students.
All schools, Willard said, need to have policies and procedures in place for responding to incidents of cyberbullying, especially in cases that involve threats or that create a hostile environment.
'Can I Just Disappear?'
Henderson County school officials admitted investigating the exact origin of the threatening e-mail took a lot of time. Additionally, the school did not have specific policies in place to address cyberbullying or cyberthreats.
"Any time any words, whether they be verbal or written or, confirmed by a third party, would injure a student -- that is a very, very serious problem, and we will deal with it," Superintendent Thomas Richey told The (Henderson, Ky.) Gleaner.
More than two weeks after the threatening e-mail was sent, two 15-year-olds were arrested and charged with three counts each of terroristic threatening and unlawful access to a computer.
That, however, provided little comfort to the Wood family for whom the damage had already been done.
"My daughter is in counseling now," Wood said. "She doesn't like school anymore. She is afraid to walk home by herself. She has asked, 'Can I just disappear?"
One of Wood's older daughters said the incident has hurt the family.
"It's changed my sister forever. It's made me feel like I need to check my surroundings more, like I keep looking over my shoulder," she said. "I just want whoever did this to know what they did was wrong."
Wood said she hopes the school has learned from this experience and wants the school to adopt policies that will guide future responses to such incidents.
Her family, however, probably won't be around to see that happen. They plan to move to another state after the end of the school year.
"I feel like my daughter's innocence was stripped away. The school did not give me a chance to protect her and I don't feel that it's a safe place for my children," Wood said. "It's just not worth it to put your kids through that kind of emotional stress."
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