Bullied student will receive home tutoring

Over the past two school years, Lawrence Middle School seventh-grader Warren Shivers has missed a total of 94 days of classes — including 60 this year — because he has been bullied so often that he is afraid to go to school.

His mother, Jamila, a lifelong Inwood resident and a 1996 Lawrence High School graduate, said that Warren, a special-education student, didn’t have any problems with bullies until he entered the middle school as a fifth-grader two years ago. “He was very outgoing, played football and then, little by little, everything fell apart,” Shivers said.

The move from elementary to middle school was traumatic for Warren. “There are a lot of people, and I had a problem with people talking about me,” he said. “In sixth grade I started getting bullied, and I would try to ignore it and walk away, but it bothered me.”

According to Warren, who is African-American, students in his classroom and in the halls called him names, including racial slurs. “I’m not sure why these kids want to pick on me,” he said. “I think about it every day.”

Last November, his mother started looking into home tutoring because Warren was missing so much school. “I was told home tutoring is a huge expense in the district,” she said. “They should find ways to educate him, and I shouldn’t have to hear about the budget when I want my son to get a tutor.”

She said she had placed at least half a dozen calls to Lawrence Superintendent Gary Schall. “I was told he was busy with the budget, but he could have taken five or 10 minutes to make me aware that he knows what was going on,” she said.

Shivers also communicated her concerns by email to the Board of Education and district officials, noting that her son feels intimidated by his teachers. “I initially thought someone was bullying him and began asking him about the children in school,” she wrote in an email to Lawrence Middle School Principal George Akst on Oct. 26, 2010. “Much to my surprise it is the teachers he feels intimidated by. I am at a loss for answers right now trying to figure out what to do so that my son who was beginning to enjoy the middle school experience now feels pressured and alienated by the people who are supposed to embrace him.”

After the Herald placed a call to Schall on Monday, Shivers received a call from him the same day, informing her that Warren would receive home tutoring, and that it would begin this week. “This wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t call,” she told the Herald. “I’m so happy because all I wanted for him is an education.”

“Due to the nature of the situation, the district has no comment,” Schall said.

School districts, including Lawrence, have made bullying the subject of school-wide presentations and classroom curricula. As of July 1, the state’s Dignity for All Students Act will require schools to create an environment that is free from discrimination and harassment.

“Any student who is subjected to intimidation or abuse based on actual or perceived race, color, weight, national origin, ethnic group, religion, religious practice, disability, sexual orientation, gender or sex is protected under the act,” said Deputy Chief Anne Donnelly of the Nassau County district attorney’s office’s Rackets Bureau. “Much of what happens in these cases is not criminal, so it is important to teach students good behavior and tolerance.”

Shivers said she wishes that what she and her son have been through will serve as an example for other families who want their children to receive home tutoring. “I hope that people will stand up for their children and know that it’s not always going to be easy,” she said. “I hope that people utilize what they have to help their kids. That’s all I did.”