February 03, 2010
School officials look for proactive solutions to bullying at Teton High School.
Teton County Prosecuting Attorney Kathy Spitzer has charged three Teton High School students with two counts each of misdemeanor battery charges stemming from a December hazing incident.Spitzer said the charges include two counts each of juvenile battery charges and two counts of an adult battery charge for the student who is 18 years old. As of Wednesday, the 18-year-old’s name had not been released.
“These charges will be filed by the end of the day,” Spitzer said on Tuesday. “I’m not 'after' these kids, I feel sorry for them. If we continue to sweep this under the rug, some day we’ll have to say, enough is enough.”
An incident report filed with the Teton County Sheriff’s Department reports that a student who witnessed the hazing saw two students, both juveniles, hold the victim down while the third student, an 18-year-old, “tea bagged” the victim. “Tea bagging” is a slang term used when one male subject puts his scrotum on another individual’s face. The students allegedly responsible for the hazing admitted in the incident report that while the students held down the victim and “farted” in his face, everyone had their clothes on. In the report, the victim also said that the alleged assailant told the victim “not to worry, that the other freshman will get theirs too.”
Spitzer said she had hoped it would not come to the point where her department would be involved and said that the school administration had ample opportunity and flexibility to manage the incident with the idea that a higher punishment would be issued to those students who participated in the alleged hazing. She said Tuesday she hopes the true story of what happened in December would come to light.
“Nobody is realizing the severity of this ‘boys will be boys’ crap. This isn’t just hazing,” she said.
The three students involved with the hazing were suspended from five wrestling matches, according to high school wrestling coach Peter Schumacher. Two were issued an out-of-school suspension while the third was issued an in-school suspension. All three were made to apologize to the victim and the parents, Schumacher said, adding that he also required the students to apologize to the wrestling team.
The witness’ father said Monday he had hoped the prosecuting attorney’s office would not need to step in and had hoped the administration would require the students involved in the hazing to quit the wrestling team altogether.
“The biggest thing for us is we don’t want this to happen again,” said the father, whose name is being withheld to protect his minor son. “I don’t think the punishment was appropriate and we need to protect existing students. This would be a simple way for the school district to say this isn’t going to be tolerated.”
He added of having the students removed from the team.
“It seems like a no-brainer to me,” he said.
The victim reported to the sheriff’s department that he had gone into the locker room after practice and that several students held him down and one person put their “balls in his face.” The victim also stated in the report that he heard this had happened to another teammates earlier in practice. The party involved in the alleged hazing also said in the sheriff’s report that hazing is a common practice and that he too had gone through hazing practices as a freshman.
School board chairman Doug Petersen said Tuesday that in light of the charges filed by Spitzer, he is looking for Teton High School administrators to take a serious look at restorative justice practices at the school.
“We’re going to do things differently as a school district,” Petersen said. “I think we need to move forward and we need to use this as a springboard to increase awareness and prevent this from happening again. We need to be more proactive than reactive.”
Petersen said he and the rest of the school board continue to stand by the administrations’ decision as to how they handled the students’ punishment, including the school’s investigation into the hazing complaint. He said Tuesday he had not received an appeal to the school’s punishment decision from either the victim or the alleged perpetrators.
Teton High School principal Chad Williams said Tuesday he planned to meet with the student council this week to talk about plans to implement programs that would thwart bullying. He said he felt the school’s investigation into the incident was done thoroughly and in a timely manner and utilized the current guideline as laid out in the school’s policy manual. The hazing incident at the school was considered a “ major offense” as defined by the handbook that lists hazing as “bullying or harassment.” A first offense requires a “student/principal conference and parents may be called and detention assigned.” The policy manual also defines other means for punishment that Williams said he and other administrators used as a guideline to determine the punishment laid out for the student involved.
Petersen said he will instruct the high school administration to look more closely at implementing restorative justice practices at the school. Currently, the high school offers a teen living class as an elective that addresses bullying issues and requires all incoming freshman to take a social behaviors class that also addresses appropriate behavior and bullying issues.
“We need to look at the restorative justice (program),” Petersen said. “We need to look at that program, and we don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” he added, citing the expertise available in Teton County.
Martha Doyle, a Teton Valley resident who works with Teton Youth and Family Services in Jackson specializes in restorative justice practices, a method of resolution that helps keep students out of the penal system and focuses on resolutions involving members of all those involved in incidents such as this, was invited by Spitzer to help possibly mitigate in this situation.
Doyle said Tuesday she was excited to work with the school district. A guest column on page A4 of the print edition of this week's Valley Citizen outlines her explanation of restorative justice. In the meantime, those charged with battery will have to plead guilty or not in court and from there, depending on the plea, will work through the court system and juvenile probation.
