How a Mother Decided to Get Back at Her Son's School Bully

Good Day!

For high school teachers, it is that time of the year for the senior prank. We feel like since the advent of modern social media, seniors are just taking things a little too far. At Spring Hill High School in Tennessee, students who have yet to be identified left a wave of destruction, including destroying 40-weekend meal bags for students in need and hygiene products. Your senior year should be full of fun and good, memorable moments like those of the seniors who literally broke the dance floor. That’s a way to end the year!

Let’s end this intro with some positive news and inspiration!

Elliot Tanner is a 15-year-old wunderkind who received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota at 13 and his Master’s in Physics at 15. He is currently working on his Ph.D., investigating the mysteries of dark matter. He is on track to earn his Ph.D. at 18. Impressive, yes? 

Don’t forget - it is Mother’s Day! Well, if you are only realizing this now…well…

Cheers to your morning brew ☕

Dealing with a school bully

Parents want the best for their child. We want our kids to thrive at whatever they want to put their heart into, and we want them to be safe, especially in a place where they should be safe. Bullying is, unfortunately, an act that is as old as time and something many students are currently facing in schools around the country. As a parent, what would you do if you found out your child was being bullied? 

Jennifer Lynn Rossi, who is the mother of a child that attends Legacy Traditional School - Alamo Ranch, which is located just northwest of San Antonio, mixed up a drink for her son’s alleged school bully. Rossi reportedly mixed lemon juice, vinegar, and salt inside a Gatorade bottle. She instructed her son to give it to his classmate, which he did during P.E. class. The unfortunate child drank it. After consuming the drink, the child had to be admitted to the hospital due to experiencing nausea and headache. Fortunately, the drink was non-toxic, and the student was eventually released from the hospital. 

Rossi was arrested and detained, and during the investigation, the mother was found to have intentionally mixed the drink because other students were stealing her son’s drink. 

Parents - most people will understand that you want to do good by your kid, but this takes it too far. Sure, the concoction was non-toxic, and thankfully, the kid who drank it only had to spend a short time at the hospital, but he still had to go to the hospital. There are better ways to handle this, and it does start with listening to your child (which this parent did), but in seeking a solution, let us not take the eye for an eye route. 

A page out of a yearbook

At Bellaire High School in Houston, Texas, a controversial page was published titled “Times of Palestine.” The page highlights a student’s and her family’s experience with the genocide that is happening in Gaza. The page includes casualty counts of Israeli and Palestinian victims and the number of Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas. The backlash to the page was that no other perspective was highlighted - the Jewish student voice. One section, in particular, was the ire of many of the angry voices when the student was quoted saying the following: 

A parent of a student was furious that this was in the yearbook. She stated:

Principal Michael Niggli's reaction to the yearbook's content sparked a significant change. He has pledged to introduce checks and balances for the editorial process in the upcoming school year. Additionally, he has announced the availability of a revised edition of the yearbook for those interested. 

How do you feel about this controversy? 

The Confederate Legacy

The legacy of the Confederacy is still strong in large swaths of the South where the flag can be found freely thrown on front lawns, and stickers adorning pickup trucks. To those who support the open demonstration of the Confederacy, they emphasize that it is because of pride and the acknowledgment of their heritage. 

In 2020, as a result of the aftermath of George Floyd and the civil unrest that followed, The Shenandoah County School Board in Virginia voted to rename two schools—Stonewall Jackson High, which became Mountain View High, and Ashby-Lee Elementary, which became Honey Run Elementary. Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee were prominent figures during the Civil War, and Turner Ashby was a cavalry commander for the South.  

Even though the community is majority white, there is a significant black population that lives within the community. A local resident who is against reverting the school name to their previous name state: 

The naming of these schools was not incidental but reflected

Understandably, those who support the change back to the names of the giants of the Confederacy feel a connection with those individuals as they represented the ideals of the South in which they fought for state rights. Yet, lest we forget, that right was the right to own slaves. Also, as harsh as this sounds to those who support this ideal of the Confederacy, those states that seceded were traitors, and they did lose the Civil War.  

On Friday, with three new members on the school board, they voted 5-1 to reverse the name changes, restoring the names of the schools to the original names - Stonewall Jackson High and Ashby-Lee Elementary.

Closing Bell

On this day in 1926…

Roald Amundsen and his fifteen men aboard the airship Norge became the first verified explorers to reach the North Pole. Two years later, Amundsen disappeared during a rescue mission, and wreckage of his aircraft were eventually found. Two months after his disappearance and with no bodies ever found, the search was called off.