Dad Gets Restraining Order Against Son’s 4th-Grade Classmate

I don’t think it’s crazy at all. It says he called the school and they very obviously didn’t care “Christopher reported the incident to his teacher, whose response was minimal. When Casteel called the principal after Christopher got home, the principal said she was on a conference call” — I think he did the right thing by filing a restraining order. The cops DID find a knife on the little creep.

We were in the same position with my son who has been the victim of bullying for 4 years at the hands of the same child. Nothing had ever formally been done, though the school claims they spoke with the parents of the boy and they refused to do anything. I spoke with a few friends in the prosecutors office and sheriff’s department and that was their recommendation: get a restraining order and file a formal complaint with the county prosecutor’s office. So far this year has been quiet, my son has made yet another effort to friend this child as my son holds no grudge. The first sign of a problem, I will be following through with the steps mentioned above. Kudos to these parents for looking out for their son.

Hooray for Dad!!! I am so glad that I’m not the mother of a school age child, anymore. It scares the mess out of me to think that things have gotten so out of hand in our schools. If the schools don’t take care of these incidents in a responsible manner, what choice do the parents have, except to seek legal remedies.

This dad’s my hero of the day. He did the right thing. Perhaps a budding sociopath will get the help he needs to get better; if not, at least the innocent kid will be safe. I am behind this dad 100%.

We need more strong parents like this guy! The school district is more worried about the kid being at school even if there is a problem. My 8 yr old stated to his Dr. that his teacher hit him with a divider in the head and grabbed his arms! Of course when we reported it – no. I kept him home until investigation was done to my satisfaction and the situation had time to resolve (good common sense)and they made them unexcused! I’m demanding changes to policy. Zero tolerance should go both ways! I’m so proud of this dad!!!!!! God is too!

Good for dad!

Good for dad. This should be a wake up call to the kid’s parents. I bet he’s had other issues and they let it ride. Can’t do that now. If the parents of these kids won’t do anythng, the parents of the bullied child have to step up.

You do what you need to do to protect your kid, especially if our schools are turning a blind eye.

Teachers and principals are weak when it comes to bullying. i think they are afraid to act for whatever reason, my kid’s school is very slow to react to bulllying, even though they preach no bullying. you almost have to turn into a bully yourself to get these schools to listen. pretty darn sad.

Good job in protecting your son.

He was thinking about his son. Dont blame him one bit.

Our society creates bullies. You just have to watch our reality TV shows to see what a great idea it is to tear other people down to elevate yourself.

“We’ve never dealt with this before in our district.” — Yeah i’m sure up until now you turned a blind eye, or maybe organized a reality TV replica to tear the kid down even more.

I like Oldwolf49′s idea – just like the Scarlet Letter.

The boy’s father did the right thing and he should be proud of his Dad for protecting him the best way he knows how. It seems the school was going to sweep the conflict between the kids under the carpet and hope for it to resolve itself. What a great Dad!!

Very good father, he did the right thing. I am so nicely surprised to see that this rare “breed” of fathers does exist in the USA!!!!

OMG. I’m on a conference call???? I would be down in that office so fast. A knife at school, pulled on my kid & the principal is too busy to discuss it? She better be on a conference call about someone having a gun at school because I can’t think of anything more important to discuss than a student with a knife unless it is a student with a gun. Good for dad in getting the restraining order and keeping his boy out of harm’s way for 5 days if the school wasn’t going to do anything about it! Bravo to the knife-weilding boy’s mom for withdrawing him from that school. Hopefully she’s putting him in a school that can handle him better. I hope she’s pulling him out for that reason and not some sort of “you are being so mean to my helpless angel” because I tend to believe he did pull the knife or a knife wouldn’t have been found on him by police. It can’t be a coincidence that there was a report of a knife and the boy did, indeed, have a knife. As long as the mom is pulling her son out to get him the help he needs, it sounds like the parents are doing their job… now if only the school would do theirs. Poor performance if you ask me.

GOOD FOR HIM. I was bullied chronically from kindergarten to high school while teachers let it happen, and very little times did I have anyone stand up for me, including my parents. Because of my awareness of this (through my own experiences), this WILL NOT happen to my daughter. Regardless of the method, my daughter will not dread walking into school each day for years. If that ultimately meant a restraining order, I would pursue that…because the next step would be MY going into the school to confront the child, or MY going to the child’s house to confront the parent(s), and we really don’t even want to go there.

Good for this father!! I would do the same thing. I am so glad that I have known my school principal for 10 years and I know she would never say she was on a conference call if I called her to speak about an incident like this. It’s horrible that schools are not being taught how to handle bullying properly. There are too many schools that are doing that kids will be kids crap and letting bullies get away with it because they don’t know what to do. There needs to be more training for these teachers and principals. This dad is a hero in my book!

I’m a Teacher here in the Midwest. We often have students who are caught with small pocketknives, etc, what our policy here at the School refers to as contraband. However, more often than not, the items are taken away and returned to the student at Christmas break or the end of the School year. Most of our students are from the farming community and it’s simply in their culture, as it is argued from the top. Teachers can only confiscate the contraband and report it. When fights do break out here at the School, the threats hurled at one another can be quite serious. One such student involved in several fights had been caught with a larger hunting knife that other students had seen in his locker and reported. When I brought this connection between this disruptive student and former knife incident to the attention of our Principle I was quickly told to stop looking for trouble. And that Is really what I want to comment on here. It is so clear and obvious to me since I am on the inside that I just have to address to all the concerned parents on this thread. The reason why more is not done is because Teachers are underpaid and overworked. While I myself get involved, most Teachers do not. This is the culture at most schools I believe, not to go looking for trouble and to cost themselves even more time at School. If students are bullying in the School yard it saves Teachers time and money and lots of it to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. The same logic can be applied to the occasional student that brings num-chucks, Chinese throwing stars to School or a pocketknife or some other potentially deadly weapon. What is the lesser of two evils here? Take the contraband and give the student a verbal warning or put that student into a system he or she might never escape from and be forced to hand themselves lots of additional time and paperwork in an already very stressed atmosphere. This is why bullying continues to this day at all levels of the spectrum, from name calling, to pushing a student down, to pushing each other around to full on fights to students being stabbed to death with weapons the School system might have caught had Bullying been taken more serious, had their been additional resources, more pay, more time and or a better oversight system in place. It sickens me to know this is true and it’s not right. We owe our students better than this. I do stand up for any student I come into contact with that I suspect is being bulled even if it means a 30 minute car drive out of my way to get my student home and I have to bring dinner home that night and not cook at home. Sadly, most Teachers cannot, will not do this.

Being threatened with a knife is not bullying, it is assault. It should be called what it is. If someone threatened me with a knife at work, the first call I would make would be to the police. I think we should teach our kids – most of whom have their own cell phones – to call the police instead of bothering with teachers or principals. I’m sure when that started happening enough, school districts would take this sort of thing more seriously. They’re the ones who wanted all the stupid “zero tolerance” laws, and now they’re weaseling out of enforcing them because of laziness? favortism? As soon as the boy told his teacher, she should have taken the other kid to the office, searched him, and then he should have been kicked out of school.

Sue the kids parents, once that starts happening people will control their kids.

i recommend they learn gracie “bullyproof” to control the situation. instead of fighting fire with fire use water vs fire.

odd how the parents of the aggressor isn’t really mentioned in this. and i am with casteel, in our time and within this society, we all need to be more aggressive towards these bullies and i would be inclined to sue this school for it’s non-reactive behaviors. not monetary but rather mandatory training of reactions to this incident which could of turned out way worse. COME ON CALIFORNIA, GET YOUR SH*T TOGETHER, IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE ALL ON VACATION FROM REALITY!!

Mr. Casteel took all the correct steps to ensure his son’s safety. It’s a shame (and maybe illegal) that the school principal didn’t, also. The fact that Mr. Casteel’s son spoke honestly to his dad about his fear and the father’s immediate reaction speaks volumes about the quality father he is. Kudos, Mr. Caseel.

Give this man the FATHER OF THE YEAR award … good for him! Bullying has been around since the beginning of time but schools as well as parents have turned blind eyes to it, chalking it up to “kids will be kids.” Thank goodness this father filed his complaint – his act opened a lot of eyes!

Two notes. 1) None of you seem to have considered that maybe the kid with the knife was being bullied and decided to defend himself. The kid in the picture above is either very big or much older than four. 2) Four may be a little young but I had a pocket knife IN my pocket from about age 8 till now. Things aren’t so different now–other than litiginously–that carrying a pocket knife should get a kid labeled a criminal. Also, kids will be what you expect of them; send the kid to juvi and he may very well BECOME a criminal. Particularly if he was defending himself.

the school needs to remove these elements and inform parents of this behavior , cause if that happened to my boy, i would not be so forgiving ! (anyone that brings weapons to a place of education obviously does not want to be there)

Kudos to this father; he certainly did the right thing. Did the school handle this situation appropriately . . . absolutely not. However, schools the schools hands are often tied when the child is Special Ed and has an IEP. Case in point, at a local school here a student was sitting against a brick wall during lunchtime. Another student came along and kicked him as hard as he could in the face with his steel-toed boot. Obviously, the victim was seriously injured. The crime did go through the court system and was plea’d out to probation. However, the kids mother had three special ed students and knows the system and threatened to sue if her son was not let back in school. Sure enough, he was let back.

Reason #7855639 I’m homeschooling my kid. Reason #2726 I think teachers and principals are overpaid for the jobs they do. Kids aren’t learning and kids aren’t safe. Why should we pay more taxes for their salary when they’re not doing their jobs?

Yep…bullies and no one wants to do nothing. A very close Family member in Canada she always home schooled her children…therapist told her that the young child they adopted should be placed in a school atmosphere not home schooled cause he has issues. He is small for his age…looks like he is 8 when he is 11. She placed him in a reg school atmosphere and bang the bully beat the ever living crap out of him, concussion, bleeding in the eyes, and damage to his esophagus. How nice was that. Then because the kid who beat him up is a minor…law states in Canada…he will get a slap on the wrist and that will be that. However, the little boy that we all so fondly know in the family will suffer this incident for the rest of his life. What do you do? Sue the parents, fight to have the bully placed in a reform school ..which due to the young offenders act is almost impossible. We all feel, in the family that she should sue.
So to this parent…my hat is off to you…keep fighting because the good lord only knows what will happen next.
Kris

AWESOME, good job i hope this encourages more parents to take action. Why did the teacher NOt check the kid for a knife? she should be written up

“The kid in the picture above is either very big or much older than four”

SANDRA — Try READING the article..FOURTH GRADE is not four years old!

My son was bullied and the school thus far has done NOTHING even after 4 years. Their school website has a huge “NO tolerance for bullies” sign, but they sure DO tolerate all the bullying they do. I also do NOT believe my son is the only one. I’m sure they ignore plenty of others. Moms belong staying at home with their kids and stop trying to compete with men to prove some point, but that’s another story.

Good for the Dad! I wish I would have thought of asking for a restraining order when my son was beaten on his school bus! Any kind of violence, verbal or physical, is senseless, and should NEVER be tolerated! NEVER!!

I am disgusted at the negligence of the school! It is sad that the family had to take legal matters into their own hand. The school should have called law enforcement immediately. As a Delinquency Preventioin Program former administrator…. this would not have flown in our county! The path is this: Call law enforcement (by the school), Juvenile Probation department will assess the situation, press charges, place in custody for a few days? Put on Diversion/Probation for having a weapon, monitoring by the county. This child is dangerous, the age does not matter! Protect the public, and save this juvenile’s life by providing Probation monitoring and court involvement. That’s my humble and professional opinion.