Teacher Gets Jail Time After Instructing Students to Hit the Class ‘Bully’

vrijdag 23 augustus 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Nicole Fabian-Weber 16 hours ago

Cynthia Ambrose was an elementary school teacher from San Antonio, Texas. Why was she a teacher and not one anymore? Because Ambrose encouraged her students to line up and hit Aiden Neely, a 6-year-old who was "showing signs of being a bully," as hard as they could so he could see "what it feels like to be a bully." And, being children, they obliged. The assault on Neely stopped after the seventh kid hit him so hard in the back of the head that he began to cry. Yes, this was under the supervision of a teacher.

After being fired from her job, Ambrose was convicted of the misdemeanor charge "official oppression" by a jury, and now she's been sentenced to 30 days in jail. Just or totally out of line?

I'd say this, coupled with the fact that Ambrose will never work as a teacher again, is an appropriate punishment. To think of what all of those children must have felt like that day -- scared, humiliated, confused -- while under the supervision of Ambrose, a teacher, is nauseating. Bullying is obviously a real problem, and it needs to be dealt with, but how Ambrose went about the situation was wrong, and she deserves to be punished for that.

Hopefully, during the 30 days this woman is in prison, she'll sit and really think about what she did. Aiden Neely should have had repercussions if he were being a bully, but not like that. If anyone should know that "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," it's a teacher.

Do you think this is an appropriate punishment for Cynthia Ambrose?

Image via Tim (Timothy) Pearce/Flickr

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Anonymous Bully Threatens Little Girl's Life With Mangled Doll and Menacing Note (PHOTO)

dinsdag 20 augustus 2013

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Nicole Fabian-Weber 1 hour ago

An 11-year-old girl came home to find the throat of her Raggedy Ann doll slit, along with a note that read the following stuffed inside:

"Dear Bella
This is a warning that you should kill yourself before I do
p.s. my last name starts with a H.
Kill yourself!"

After making the disturbing discovery on her porch, Bella Mastracci immediately ran to her mother, Cami Amato, who, naturally, called the police. Since there are no fingerprints on the doll, no one has been named as a suspect just yet. But Amato believes that the harasser may be a boy her daughter had problems with in the past. "We followed up on the possible suspect that the mother believed [did it], and we didn't find any reason to believe that he was involved in the case, but we are still looking into everything," Powell Police Department spokesperson Megan Canavan said.

Bella, who only has a few more weeks until she has to go back to school, said that she's not going to let this god-awful note get her down. But she did have a message for whoever did it: "Stop bullying. Don't be mean. Don't bully anybody else, because it's hurting them."

Although Bella is looking on the bright side of things, I can't imagine her mother is. Although I by no means consider myself a "helicopter parent", I would be hovering over my child non-stop after something like this, until the person was found. There are way too many crazy people out there, and if, god forbid, anything ever happened, and I knew I could have prevented it, I would never be able to live with myself. This isn't something that ought to be taken lightly. Not in today's sick world. The note looks like it was written by a kid, but ... what if it wasn't?

Hopefully, the person who wrote this harassing note is found soon, and Bella and her family can go back to living in peace. And hopefully the person will heed Bella's message. Stop being mean. Stop being a bully.

What would you do if your child received a note like this?

Images via Powell Police Department

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