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MAGNA -- A Magna woman says her son was attacked and seriously hurt by a group of school bullies. School administrators are investigating and police are involved, but the teen's mom says the threats are getting worse.
Bullying is such a serious problem, the U.S. Department of Education recently sent letters to schools saying it cannot be tolerated.
Related:
Education officials taking stand against bullying
It's called a nationwide epidemic, and now schools and the government are going on an all-out offensive against bullying in all its forms.In this case, the school and police are still trying to get to the bottom of what happened. But Shanna Nichol is so concerned she just transferred her 15-year-old son to another school.
Nichol's son didn't want to be identified, but he has bumps on his head and a broken tooth. Nichol says for the past couple of weeks, a group of teens have been harassing and threatening her son and his girlfriend.
On Monday, the group surrounded Nichol's son, who goes to Cyprus High School in Magna, but he got away. The next day, he was assaulted off campus. Nichol says it went beyond bullying.
"[He] went to go run, and another kid grabbed him and threw him down on the ground, and a whole bunch of them started kicking him and hitting him," Nichol says.
"They've been saying they're going to jump me, that people have bats with them and they're going to kill me and my boyfriend," Cyprus student Sydney Heath says.
The Granite School District says it has taken disciplinary action against two teens involved in this case. Unified police also cited those two people and are looking for a third who was allegedly involved in the assault.
District administrators say there appears to be a history among everyone involved, but the district's "safe schools" policy was violated.
"It's an investigation that's ongoing," Granite District spokesman Ben Horsley says. "There's obvious elements of violations of school policy; and regardless if it's classified as bullying or not, they violated school policy and we're going to take action against them."
Horsley says if your child is being harassed or bullied, you need to let administrators know as soon as possible.
E-mail: syi@ksl.com
