ARCADIA >> Parents of a 7-year-old boy who fractured his skull at school and spent a week in the intensive care unit have created a stir on social media with a post alleging the Arcadia school district is not doing enough to address bullying.
Parents Eli Tsou and Jenny Yang posted images of their son Jeremy Tsou’s injury on Facebook last week, saying he was pushed and tripped by another student in his class, causing him to hit his head on a desk and the ground.
The post has been shared over 13,750 times in the past five days.
“It’s been 5 months since Jeremy was pushed and tripped by a boy in his classroom, hard enough to fracture his skull and cause brain bleeding that required surgery to treat,” Yang said in the post. “Disappointingly, the school never took any action to address the bullying. Instead, they focused on trying to discredit the teacher who was trying to sound the alarm of the severity of his injury, and changed their initial story to blame Jeremy by claiming his injury was self-inflicted.”
Eli and Jenny, who are both medical doctors, have criticized the Arcadia Unified School District for its handling of the incident and its subsequent investigation, which, the parents say, contains several inconsistencies, including the chronology of events and a varying number of witnesses to the incident.
Arcadia Unified Spokesman Ryan Foran said the district emailed a statement to staff on Friday and to parents of Baldwin Stocker Elementary School students on Monday, addressing the incident and the story that had been shared on social media.
The statement expressed joy with Jeremy’s recovery and empathy toward the family, but also said that online posts detailing accounts of the incident contained factual inaccuracies.
“State and federal law protect the privacy of the student and the family and do not allow us to publicly address the details of the incident or the injury,” the statement read. “However, multiple accounts of the incident were posted online and many statements are factually inaccurate. We wish to provide as much insight and clarity as respectfully and legally possible.”
The statement also says the district conducted a “lengthy” investigation, which included interviewing numerous witnesses, the 7-year-old accused student, and staff. There were no findings of bullying or physical contact by another student, according to the statement. The Arcadia Police Department also conducted an investigation, which did not lead to any findings of criminal conduct.
The controversy began on May 19, when Jeremy was sent home with a Head Injury” report, signed by the principal, a health assistant and the district nurse.
The report stated that “Jeremy was pushed by another student causing him to fall down and hit his head on the desk.”
The following day, Jenny said she spoke to Principal Jayne Nickles, who allegedly told her she investigated the incident and found that a student had tripped Jeremy. She said she made the student apologize to Jeremy in front of the class.
One week later, after the school district conducted an independent investigation, Nickles changed her investigative conclusion and said Jeremy slipped on a pencil.
Foran said the district launched the investigation after the first grade teacher allegedly said the student was pushed. Throughout the course of the investigation, he said, it was learned that the teacher had not witnessed the incident.
According to the district investigation, there was not enough evidence to prove Jeremy had been pushed, but rather he had slipped while “running or moving quickly” through the room.
“The evidence does not support disciplining the accused student for the injury to Jeremy Tsou,” the investigation states. “This does not mean the event didn’t happen the way it was described by the injured student — just that it cannot be justified by evidence as required by the Education Code Law.”
The investigation also found that “mistakes were made in how the ‘Head Injury’ notification letter was filled out,” in that it made a summative judgment about the cause of injury before conducting an investigation.
Eli and Jenny met with Superintendent David Vannasdall in June, and told him they were unhappy with the results of the investigation.
The parents have filed complaints against Nickles; Assistant Superintendent, Educational Services Jeff Wilson; Superintendent David Vannasdall and Christine Blackstock, director of curriculum, assessment and instruction for K-6, over the handling of the incident and the investigation, which Eli said is “confusing, misleading and unprofessional.”
On May 29, the same day the district finalized the investigation, Nickles penned a letter to the parents, acknowledging “systemic breakdowns” during the course of events surrounding Jeremy’s fall and subsequent hospitalization.
“I feel like I let you down and I can only promise that I have learned from this experience and will do everything in my power to ensure it never happens this way again,” Nickles wrote.
She said the district implemented a list of “follow-up action steps” as a result of the investigation, which she plans to adhere to should a similar incident occur again in the future.
Eli and Jenny subsequently filed a Level IV appeal of the complaints to the district, which the board addressed in a closed session meeting on Sept. 8.
On Sept. 17, Board Vice President Janet Chew wrote a letter responding to the appeal, in which she acknowledges that AUSD’s “extremely high” standards were not met with regard to this incident.
“However, we are always committed to learning and improving our protocols, processes and relationships, and we will use this investigation and the concerns you have raised to do so,” she wrote.
Eli and Jenny, along with other parents and community members, intend to address the Board of Education at its meeting Tuesday. The meeting is at 7 p.m. in the multi-purpose room at Arcadia High School, at 180 Campus Dr.
