Parents claim bullying, bias at school

More than a dozen supporters attended a Southampton school board meeting this week to protest the suspension of a high school student who got into a fight at school following a year in which, his parents said, he was repeatedly bullied.

Daniel Claud, the father of the suspended student, charged that district and school officials did little or nothing when he and his son, also named Daniel, reported repeated incidents of bullying at the school.

When the high school junior finally responded last month, his father said, the school suspended him for five days, but not the student the Clauds allege instigated the fight. Claud said he and his son warned officials of threats early in the day of the fight, to no avail.

"The failure of Southampton High School is already a big setback for Dan," Daniel Claud wrote in an email, noting courses his son missed as a result of the suspension. "To make matters worse, the victim is kicked out of school and the bully gets to remain in school."

A report of the Tuesday board meeting in the Southampton Press said parents criticized the district for singling out black and Native American students for harsher punishment. Students from the nearby Shinnecock Indian Reservation attend the school. Daniel Claud is African-American and Native American, though he is not Shinnecock.

In a statement prepared for Newsday, school Superintendent J. Richard Boyes took exception to charges of racial bias or victim neglect in the Claud case.

"As a typical school, we would never claim that we are free of bullying all of the time, but we do disagree with the characterization of a specific recent incident," he said.

He said the school takes "any report or allegation of bullying or racial bias in treatment of student discipline very seriously," and has a racially and ethnically diverse staff to deal with problems.

"We believe that the great majority of students feel safe and supported and will tell you so," he said.

"We are confident that we are pro-active and fair in our treatment of all students," Boyes said in his statement, adding the district "has many initiatives to promote acceptance and celebration of cultural differences from the earliest grades."

Daniel Claud said his son grew frustrated with inadequate responses during the year-and-a-half he was bullied. At one point, he said, his son was attacked in a locker room and had his head smashed against a bench, but the attack resulted in no suspensions.

The district, citing privacy laws, declined to discuss specifics of the case.