Tamaqua graduate: ‘I was bullied’

The discussion on arming staff in Tamaqua has turned to the issue of bullying in the district.

Chris Daynorowicz, a 2016 graduate of the district, said he’s received messages from acquaintances all over the world.

“And they asked me, ‘Why is your school doing this? It’s putting a black mark on your town,’ ” Daynorowicz said.

Daynorowicz said he’s looked into other school shootings, such as Columbine, where he said the two shooters were bullied, and the Parkland, Florida shooter, who was a bullied student.

“In high school and in middle school, I was bullied,” he said. “In eighth grade, I was bullied to the point where we went to the middle school principal and he confronted my mother about it. My mother confronted him. He said that he was going to set up a meeting with us, the bully, Mr. Kinder and (former Superintendent) Mrs. (Carol) Makuta at the time. No meeting took place, and I was the one punished for the fact.”

Daynorowicz said that in his freshman year of high school, “a junior approached me because of a rumor that was started, shoved me against the locker. He received one detention. I was told that I had to avoid his locker to avoid any confrontation with him, and he received a detention because he was nasty.”

Shootings not random

“Most school shootings, and especially in our town, we have a very small town, if you think that a random person’s going to come into our school and shoot, it’s wrong, everybody’s going to know who this person is. We are a town of what, 6,000, a school district where the average class is 150, and you’re not going to have a stranger,” he said.

“This student or individual is going to be a bullied individual or possibly a bullied individual, somebody with a mental health (issue).”

He asked what the board is doing about bullying and mental health issues.

“The no-tolerance policy obviously does not work. What is our school board and our school district currently doing about that?”

Superintendent Ray Kinder said he couldn’t speak to his specific situation, as he wasn’t aware of it.

“I can only tell you that when student bullying, harassment, arguments, those type of things go on, when it’s reported, administration investigates it,” Kinder said. “There are many times two sides, three sides to a situation or a story, but they are investigated and then they follow the discipline code according from what they can determine. That’s how cases are handled.”

Daynorowicz said, “It doesn’t seem like it’s working. And the entire policy that you guys have come up with is a very reactive policy. What’s that saying about not just Tamaqua, not just about Sandy Hook, not just about Parkland, what’s that saying about America in general?

Daynorowicz added, “And Tamaqua could be a start to it, and I think I would rather be known as the town that helped change bullying in America than the town that put guns in schools. I’d much rather be known for that. I’d much rather be getting calls from my girlfriend who is 3,000 miles away saying your school’s doing this, and that’s awesome, where instead I’m getting calls asking why is your school putting guns next to 14-year-old kids?”

Daynorowicz asked what would happen if a student comes in and shoots.

“There’s 30 lives right there, 30 lives gone because you have a voluntary policy and then making it mandatory,” he said. “What’s that going to say about you guys? What’s that going to say about our town in general?”

“How long is it going to take for the board to realize there is a serious mental health and bullying issue in Tamaqua, a fact that has been very hard to share is my bullying in high school and middle school and even after high school. Last February on my birthday, I spent 16 hours in the hospital because I attempted to take my life. What happens if a 16-year-old student decides to do that? Where does the board stand now knowing that your bullying policies are not working?”

Board response

Board President Larry Wittig said that the district has a bullying policy.

“If it failed in some way, we need to know where the breakdown was,” Wittig said.

“Apparently in your situation, and it is a personal situation with you, in your situation it failed you, so why did it fail? Who was not notified, who didn’t know, or were they notified and they failed to respond? That’s the key, you find out what was wrong with the policy, not what are we going to do about it if somebody takes their life. That’s a tragedy, that’s a horrific tragedy, and something failed, you’re right, something failed, but until we identify where and how, we can’t fix it,” Wittig said.

“You don’t just generically say, ‘OK we need a bullying policy to avoid what happened to you.’ I don’t know, I don’t know what happened to you, what specifically melted down that you were continually bullied all through school. That shouldn’t happen, never happen.”

The student said that every time he reported it, “I did not feel safe going to the teachers because nothing would have happened.”

Kinder told Daynorowicz he wasn’t sure there was a way to respond to what he was saying.

“I get reports of those type of things that these things occur and that these meetings have taken place and they have been addressed,” Kinder said. “So to say it doesn’t happen at all, I don’t think is necessarily accurate.”

Kinder added, “If you’re asking me do our policies, any policy, guarantee that nothing will happen, no, there’s no guarantees when it comes to these type of things.”

Wittig asked Daynorowicz what failed.

“The lack of communication within the district,” Daynorowicz said, adding that he would report situations, but nothing happened.

“I gave up on reporting because I lost faith in our school board,” he said. “I lost faith.”

Paige Pratt, a 10th-grade student, said she and another student spoke at the last school board meeting and were bullied the next day they went to school.

Threat assessment

Jennifer Paisley, with the Tamaqua Citizens for Safe Schools, asked if the district has a threat assessment team in the district.

Kinder said, “Our administrators’ job is to hear this information and to make determinations on it and involve the necessary people. That includes witnesses, it can include people who are students, it could include teachers, it could include guidance counselors. What I’m saying, though, is it’s the administrators’ job to make the determination.”

Paisley said the state’s school safety task force is recommending that and it can be done.

Kinder said, “And that school safety task force recommended from that meeting that we add about $5 million to our budget,” he said. “The reality of the situation is that our teachers and our staff members, everyone is working themselves to the bone. We are consistently busy throughout the entire day dealing with a variety of issues, this only being one of them. The administrator gets together, finds out the information from each of the students and makes a judgment.

If a person is being bullied, they should report it to their administrator.”

Resident Liz Pinkey, a mother of three, said, “Your response to that young man made me physically ill.”

She added, “I am just appalled, I am absolutely appalled that you could be so callous, and so uncaring to someone coming to you and saying you have a problem and it’s a big one. People have been saying that for weeks. People have been trying to tell you that.”

Pinkey added, “I can think of at least five people, five children in this district that have approached people in this district with bullying problems, and have either been made the butt of more bullying by teachers and administrators, or have had to leave the district.”

“This has nothing to do with the guns anymore, this has to do with the mental health of the children in this district and your obligation to provide for that,” she said. “And from the response I’ve heard here tonight, it’s not even on your radar on the board.”

Pinkey said, “The proactivity from this school district on addressing mental health issues before they become something that serious is practically nonexistent. You are doing a great disservice to the children of this district by not giving them more help where they need it the most.”

Karen Tharp asked the board to consider all of the information that the parents presented at the special public meeting, and said prevention is the best option.

“Can you at least consider that you may be looking at this from the wrong end?” Tharp asked.

The board will next meet in a work session at 7 p.m. Dec. 11.