Elizabeth Graffam said her daughter would come home crying on a daily basis.
BRIDGTON – A woman removed her daughter from eighth-grade at the Lake Region Middle School Wednesday charging that officials have done nothing to stop others from bullying her.
Elizabeth Graffam of North Bridgton said she has either talked to, or sent a letter to her daughter’s teacher, the assistant principal and principal of the Naples school and the superintendent of SAD 61 concerning the matter and has had no results.
Graffam said she and her daughter went to Assistant Principal Frank Setter on many occasions.
“Even my husband, Mark, called him,” Graffam said. “He would just say, ‘We’re dealing with it,’ and couldn’t say what they were doing because it was confidential.”
Graffam said she contacted the governor’s office and the Attorney General’s Office about possible civil rights violations, because she did not get a response from the school or the school district.
A spokesman from the governor’s office said on Thursday that they are looking into the charges.
Graffam said she received an e-mail from the Attorney General’s Office on Thursday asking for more information about the incidents.
Debbie Gray, civil rights division of the Attorney General’s Office, said that before beginning an investigation, her office would need to gather more facts to determine if a civil rights violation had occurred.
Graffam said her daughter has been the target of bullying from a core of three girls for the past four months. She said the extent of the physical abuse on her daughter has been confined to pushing and shoving, so far.
But there has been constant verbal abuse.
She said the situation began when her daughter learned that a boy she did not know liked her. Graffam said the ringleader of the bullying liked that boy.
Graffam said when the bullying started her daughter would come home crying on a daily basis. She said it has lessened a bit since then, but a recent increase in activity has now made it intolerable for her daughter.
“My daughter called me from school on Wednesday and was crying. She said she couldn’t take it anymore and to transfer her,” Graffam said.
SAD 17 Assistant Superintendent Mark Laroach said Graffam had inquired about the procedures necessary to transfer to the Oxford Hills School District.
Graffam said the bullying included incidents at the school cafeteria, hallways and harassing phone calls at home.
She said on March 16 the ringleader took clothes from her daughter’s locker and stuffed them in a toilet. She also said a teacher monitoring the lunchroom has told her daughter on numerous occasions to move from a table where the ringleader of those bullying her sat.
“The school never contacted me about any of these incidents and that’s what I’m angry about,” Graffam said. “I had to find out when she came home crying.
“In a letter to all three (principal, assistant principal and superintendent), I wrote that we can deal with this at this level,” Graffam said. “Then nobody returned my calls. I even faxed them and said, ‘Please call me when you get this fax and we can discuss this,’ but I never got an answer.”
Then last Tuesday somebody hacked into her daughter’s AOL Instant Messenger Buddy List (a computer address book) and erased all the names there and wrote “slut” in the directory.
When she felt she had nowhere else to turn, Graffam said she contacted the Attorney General’s Office and the governor’s office.
A spokesperson for the superintendent and assistant superintendent said they were at a meeting and could not be reached on Thursday.
Messages were left on the the voice mail of middle school Principal Charles Lomonte.
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