Photo: File photo

More bad reports are coming to light for School District 83.

The district has been at the centre of controversy since an Armstrong mother made claims last week that an older child touched her six-year-old daughter inappropriately on several occasions. 

The mother claimed the school and district have not done enough to deal with the situation.

Now, another mother is critical of how the district handled a situation when her children were bullied.

“The situation was handled so badly that we decided to homeschool our three kids until they were old enough to speak for themselves because it was clear to us the school and district staff only paid lip service to their 'zero tolerance' policy,” said the woman who asked her name not be used. “That is really frustrating for a parent because you want to know your kids are being taken care of.”

The incident happened nine years ago when her eight-year-old twins were attending an elementary school in District 83.

“It would seem that in the nine years since our experience, not much has changed,” she said in reference to criticism of the district's handling of other recent incidents.

The mother said her children were exposed to several incidences of bullying which she brought to the attention of the school principal and district officials.

“Basically, nothing was done,” she said.

She said the decider to remove her children from the school was when the principal asked her eight-year-olds to repeat what had been said to them by the bully. She claims the principal then admonished her children for using profanities when repeating what the bully had said.

The woman claims school officials then tried to place the blame on her, saying she was only making the claims because she was angry with the bully's parents.

“Which I was not,” she said.

The woman decided to pull her children from the classroom and homeschool them until they were old enough for high school.

“I know what damage can be done, so you have to get them out of that situation,” she said, adding she talked to her children about their experience to help them deal with it.