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Parents address Oswego school board about bullying

Payne Horning
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WRVO News
Michael Todd, center, organized a group of parents to address the Oswego school board about several recent cases of bullying.

A group of distraught parents voiced their concerns about bullying cases to the Oswego school board Monday. They accused the administration at Oswego High School of not properly responding to several attacks last year, may of which were caught on tape. Theresa Gibson told the board that her nephew was one of those victims.

Credit Payne Horning / WRVO News
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WRVO News
The Oswego school board ahead of its meeting Monday where parents complained of what they say is a lack of adequate response from administration to cases of bullying.

"This has been going on for years," Gibson said. "The school is well aware of this. They have been repeatedly told about this. Yet, this child can send threats to my nephew and push the child to the point of no return until he retaliates. Yet this child, who is the bully, seems to walk away free and clear."

Michael Todd, a former Oswego common councilor, organized the group after his daughter, too, was attacked last year.

"This isn’t a small-scale thing," Todd said. "This is like a whole culture at this high school."

Former Oswego High School student Shylo Winn has been a victim of harassment in the past.

"Oswego High School sucks," Winn said. "It should not be a school. That should be shut down. The same girl that attacked his [Todd] daughter, told me she was going to stab me repeatedly and dance across my grave."

Winn has since dropped out because she says after multiple attempts to alert the administration, nothing changed.

Todd said he is planning to sue the school district, in part, because he believes administration did not fill out the proper bullying forms required by New York law, the Dignity for All Students form (DASA). But, Oswego school district Superintendent Dean Goewey, who has only been on the job  said the school is not required to fill out DASA forms, only to document the incidents in writing.

"There is no requirement in the law that there has to be a DASA form," Goewey said. "What it says is there has to be documentation in writing, which there has been."

Goewey said addressing the bullying incidents is at the top of his docket on a daily basis.

"We certainly have been reviewing all of our policies and practices, always looking for ways to improve, working with the high school administration on what their current practices are," Goewey said.

In addition, Goewey said he is planning on bringing the high school's parent advisory group into that conversation. School board member Sam Tripp said his fellow members will work to make it better.

"We heard stuff tonight -- a lot of these issues were new to us tonight," Tripp said. "Of course, we'll put pressure on the administration to find out what's going on and deal with it. That's our role."

Payne Horning is a reporter and producer, primarily focusing on the city of Oswego and Oswego County. He has a passion for covering local politics and how it impacts the lives of everyday citizens. Originally from Iowa, Horning moved to Muncie, Indiana to study journalism, telecommunications and political science at Ball State University. While there, he worked as a reporter and substitute host at Indiana Public Radio. He also covered the 2015 session of the Indiana General Assembly for the statewide Indiana Public Broadcasting network.