Mother trying to protect teen from alleged bullying

A mother says her 13-year-old daughter told her she was being bullied and harassed by a boy at Eugene Butler Middle School about a month ago.

"That's hard for any mother to have to hear knowing that there's other adults around that could help her," said Skinner. "I told her to ignore it or tell the teacher, if it gets that bad tell the teacher because I thought they had already handled this."

But Skinner says last week the alleged verbal sexual advances escalated to physical harassment inside the classroom, where she says a teacher was present. Bullying reports state the girl was touched in the arm, stomach and upper chest.

"She came home off the bus and told me that, in tears, she told me that he said that if he didn't give her 'brains' that he was going to 'f' her up and if she told anyone that he would 'f' her up and she'd have a train put on her by his homeboys."

Skinner filed a bullying report with the school board and was told the student would be suspended until a hearing would determine if he would be sent to alternative school.

Duval County School District officials say policy forbids the school to tell us how the student was disciplined, but they do say he was disciplined according to school code of conduct. The code of conduct states punishment for sexual harassment can be in-school or out-school suspension, expulsion or even state or federal criminal charges.

Skinner says the boy was out of school for a few days but returned Tuesday and the harassment continued.

"She texted me and said 'Mommy I'm scared please come get me,' and I immediately called the school," Skinner says.

The school district says the students are undergoing FCAT testing this week, but there will be schedule changes next week to make sure both students are not in the same class. Skinner says that is not enough.

"It's frustrating you know because I leave my children in the care of someone else and they failed her, they failed to protect her," says Skinner.

"I had to intervene twice in pulling her out of that school to protect her so it's frustrating."

The teenage girl is being home-schooled for the week and Skinner filed a police report with the School Resource Officer.