A Missouri mother is explaining what led to the suspension of her teenage son who was the subject of ongoing bullying that she says the school did nothing about.
Margo Boyd’s son attends West County Middle School in Leadwood, Missouri, with his brother. Since Boyd and her 13- and 14-year-olds moved there in February, the students have been the targets of bullying at the school, which online sources list as 98 percent white and less than 1 percent Black.
“They were being called racial slur,s and it’s been ongoing at the school. Nothing but racial slurs and I take it to the principal each and every time but nothing has been done,” Boyd said to 5 On Your Side Thursday, April 18.
With the bullying going on for months, Boyd sent an email to Principal Kevin Coffman.
“A boy called Kanye a n—-er and all this little boys friends heard it,” Boyd said in the email of the incident that occurred in the school cafeteria Monday, April 15. “This stuff needs to be taken seriously! This is something that shouldn’t be allowed at the school. Kanye won’t take this much longer. He will defend himself against this.”
And defend himself Kanye did. When things got worse the following day, the boy wound up getting physical with the unnamed student after Boyd says she “never got an email back from Mr. Coffman.”
“He followed my son into the bathroom and in the bathroom, it was both of them in there, and he continued to throw racial slurs at my son,” Boyd explained to the news station. “My son asked him to please stop steadily calling me the N-word. Stop. The boy refused to stop so my son asked him, ‘Where do you want it in the face or chest?’ The boy said, ‘In my chest,’ so my son punched him one time in the chest.”
Kanye is now suspended, but Boyd says the other boy is still in school.
In response to the incident, the West County R-IV School District would not comment specifically on the matter, citing state and federal law. Still, it issued a statement Thursday saying in part, “we as a District remain committed to providing an inclusive environment for all students and staff that is free from discrimination, harassment and retaliation in admission or access to, or treatment or employment in, its programs, services, activities and facilities.”
For Boyd’s part, she said she wants to see “a lot” done.
“I want to know where the name calling and bullying and degrading someone because of their race is acceptable,” she says.
