Updated Friday, Oct. 22, 10:35a.m.
Mary Godwyn is speaking out after her biracial daughter was subject to physical attacks and bullying in her Wellesley elementary school. Tina Opie, a former Wellesley resident, has a similar story about the way her two Black children were treated while in the same school system several years ago. They both joined Jim Braude on Greater Boston on Wednesday evening with their stories.
Since the incidents, Godwyn says she has been disappointed by the school administrators’ and her daughter's teacher’s lack of action. “It’s really been horrific. August is my most social, my happiest child,” Godwyn said. “She went from a kid who so loves school and was so looking forward to going back to school, to a kid who stopped eating at school, she started bringing home her entire snack and lunch untouched, she started waking up at night with bad dreams.”
Wellesley school administrators responded to the requests for comments after the show aired Wednesday. Superintendent David Lussier and Principal Toni Jolley reiterated their commitment to student safety but declined to comment specifically on the Godwyn case.
“The Wellesley Public Schools has strong policies and procedures governing student behavior, and we take any allegation of behavior that risks the safety of our community seriously,” the statement read.
Lussier and Jolley went on to explain the district investigates all bullying allegations before determining “appropriate disciplinary action” and the creation of a student safety plan.
“The involvement of the parents is critical to the effectiveness of this process,” the administrators’ statement continued. “We cannot comment on the specific case you mention due to federal privacy laws involving school children. However, [we] must reiterate every allegation of bullying — or any other violation of our code of student conduct — is treated with the utmost seriousness as every student and family in the Wellesley Public Schools should expect.”
Godwyn responded to the school’s statement via email, calling attention to how Jolley handled the case.
“I can say without a scintilla of doubt that the bullying policy was NOT followed in our case,” Godwyn wrote. “Even after we insisted [the principal] investigate, and the other child confirmed the events, Principal Jolley denied bullying, writing that while the incidents were ‘serious, they do not rise to the level of bullying at this time.’ The school denied my daughter the basic safeguard as outlined in their Bullying Policy, and they did not honor her request to sit close to her classroom teacher, which falls squarely within the remedies outlined in the policy.”
In the segment on Wednesday, Opie said that her children faced similar experiences in Wellesley, and said to address the underlying problems, the broader system needs to be held accountable.
“It causes a deep level of confusion because you’re raised to believe that people for the most part are good, and I believe they are, but then things like racism and sexism and the intersection of the two blind people and it hurts the entire community,” she said of the toll bullying took on her family.
WATCH: Wellesley Parents Raise Alarm On Racist Bullying
