Aiexpress – Some middle school students in Queens say they are being bullied and beaten just because they are immigrants.
City school officials are looking into this to see if the incidents are isolated incidents or if they are a symptom of a larger issue for some of the city’s youngest immigrants.
Odilys Torres, 13, tears up and says, “It’s very hard.” She began going to J.H.S. 226 in Queens in September, after her family moved to New York from Venezuela.
She told CBS New York that she was picked on and beaten on the bus on her way home from school earlier this month while sitting next to her mother.
“They grabbed my hair, they punched me in the head, they kicked me in the stomach,” she explained in Spanish, “and they did tell me to get out of this country and leave this bus.”
The church where her family goes, HopeNYC, has been a safe place for them. It’s only a few blocks from where the city put them up after their long and scary trip.
A spokesperson from New York City Public Schools tells CBS New York:
“The safety and well-being of all our students is our top priority. After the school was informed of this incident, the school immediately responded, taking all necessary and appropriate steps, including launching an investigation and ensuring access to in-school supports for students. Bullying has absolutely no place in our school communities, and we take every report of bullying extremely seriously.”
“I want it to be publicly known my daughter’s case is not the only case,” Amaja said.
Odilys Torres’ mother claims that after she filed many complaints with the school and filed a police report, the students were suspended, and instructors are now keeping a careful eye on her daughter in and out of the classroom, but she claims that other children in the shelter are experiencing similar problems at school.
“‘I want you to get out of this country. You don’t know how to speak English,'” student Abrue Mendez Omanlis said.
This teen’s family has recently arrived from Venezuela and is staying at the same shelter. She claims that a group of girls also beat her. Her incident occurred inside a middle school.
“I’m shocked because I never thought this would happen,” mom Karen Mendez-Parra said.
School officials are currently investigating the incident.
Both mothers believe that, regardless of the criticism they may suffer for speaking up, they do not want this to happen to another baby child.
“I don’t want this to happen to other people also. I’m not 100% OK,” one person said.
If your child is being bullied at school, school officials advise you to notify them immediately. According to them, school staff receives anti-bullying training on an annual basis.
