Mom speaks out about bullying of Lac du Flambeau tribe little one

Studying Time: 6 minutes

Lynda Hagen was elevating her damaged foot at house in Mercer, Wisconsin, in   November 2023 when she received a name from the native faculty district. One other pupil had assaulted her 10-year-old son Nate, the district administrator informed her.

Hagen threw on a sweatshirt, slipped on her strolling forged together with her husband’s assist and rushed to her automotive.  

With tears streaming down her cheeks, she drove to Mercer’s public Okay-12 faculty and district constructing, anxious about Nate’s situation and indignant it had come to this. 

“I had simply felt 4 years of frustration simply come flying out,” she recalled. 

She mentioned Nate, an enrolled member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, had confronted years of bullying and racism in school, a lot of it surrounding his Native id. It escalated throughout his third-grade 12 months regardless of Hagen’s complaints to highschool and district officers, she mentioned. 

After Hagen realized extra concerning the November assault and Nate obtained much more threats in school, she, her husband and her 4 kids determined for Nate’s security to depart Mercer, inhabitants roughly 1,600, not removed from the Lac du Flambeau tribe’s reservation. 

Now, as Nate adjusts to a brand new faculty and continues to get better from the accidents he suffered, Hagen mentioned she is talking out in hopes that faculties will take such bullying extra severely. 

“My Native American, tribally enrolled little one went to a college that, from the second he stepped on the bus, till the second he received off the bus, they had been accountable for his security,” Hagen mentioned. “And so they failed him in each facet.” 

Nate isn’t alone. Research have proven that Native American college students expertise systemically excessive charges of violence and threats in school — a long-lasting drawback. WXPR additionally spoke with an grownup Lac du Flambeau tribe member who recalled enduring faculty bullying throughout her childhood. 

“When you may have Indigenous kids and also you see the issues that occur throughout Indian Nation or throughout the nation, you at all times hope that by no means occurs to my child,” she mentioned. “After which it does.”

Complaints: Bullying lasted years

Classmates had teased Nate since kindergarten. They made enjoyable of his lengthy braided hair, a customized in lots of Native American cultures, they usually known as him homophobic, transphobic and racist slurs, Hagen wrote in a since-dismissed criticism to the U.S. Division of Training Workplace of Civil Rights and in a letter to the district. 

A classmate allegedly informed him to “return to the place he got here from” and broke six pairs of his glasses, she wrote, and Nate allegedly confronted a number of threats to chop off his braid.

Hagen informed WXPR that the district supplied little assist. 

Then got here Nov. 29 of final 12 months, when Nate and his pals performed a recess recreation of keepaway within the faculty fitness center. 

His alleged longtime bully interrupted them and kicked their volleyball throughout the room, in keeping with stories by Mercer Faculty District Administrator Renae McMurray and the Iron County Sheriff’s Workplace — each of which cited video footage of the incident.

After a short skirmish over the ball, Nate’s classmate grabbed him by the neck and pulled him towards the ground. The sheriff’s workplace report described a chokehold of 5 or 6 seconds that “triggered him to cough, choke and made it laborious to breathe.”

After one other pupil pushed the classmate off of Nate, the aggressor “grabs Nate’s hair and pushes him again towards the ground,” McMurray’s report mentioned. Lynda Hagen, who was proven the footage, used stronger phrases. She mentioned the classmate grabbed Nate’s braid and “thrashed his physique backwards and forwards,” till Nate’s two pals broke the boys aside. When the classmate let go, Nate’s head slammed towards the bottom and “bounced off the ground like a basketball,” Hagen mentioned. 

In an interview, Nate recalled the aftermath. 

“I used to be on the bottom attempting to get my breath, and my head was hurting, as a result of I hit my head and my shoulder was hurting too,” Nate informed WXPR. 

The video confirmed no instructor round to intervene, Hagen mentioned. Neither report from the district and sheriff’s workplace mentions grownup intervention.

Two college students later independently corroborated that the aggressor known as Nate “homosexual,” McMurray’s report mentioned.

Nate’s pals lifted him up and supported him as he walked to the workplace, the place Nate mentioned he was informed to relax and never overreact. There, McMurray known as Lynda Hagen, who rushed over.  

Hagen expressed shock that faculty officers didn’t extra carefully examine on his accidents or name regulation enforcement. Hagen known as the sheriff’s workplace when she arrived on the faculty.

The varsity district’s pupil handbook says in instances of accidents, sickness or concussions, personnel ought to administer first assist, if skilled to take action, and summon medical assist. 

“All college students, directors, academics, employees, and all different faculty personnel share accountability for avoiding, discouraging, and reporting any type of harassment,” it says. 

Hagen suspects Nate would have been handled in another way if he weren’t Native. 

McMurray’s report, dated three weeks after the assault, mentioned Nate’s alleged bully was disciplined however didn’t elaborate. It’s unclear whether or not the classmate confronted legal penalties since many juvenile legal data are confidential.

Nate was given a security plan to maintain him separate from the opposite classmate, McMurray’s report mentioned. 

Racist bullying: ‘It was the norm after we had been at school’

Outdoors of Mercer’s single faculty district, analysis reveals systematic variations in how faculties have handled Native kids in comparison with white college students.

Few Native educators work in Wisconsin public faculty districts, in keeping with the state Division of Public Instruction. In the meantime, Wisconsin in previous years has been a nationwide chief in referring Native college students to regulation enforcement — doing so at charges far larger than these of white college students, inflicting ripple results later in kids’s lives.   

Lac du Flambeau tribe member Jordan Edwards, 35, recalled routinely dealing with racist bullying and disproportional self-discipline throughout her faculty years within the Crandon space, about 80 miles southeast of Mercer. 

She recalled a pupil at some point yelling racial slurs — calling her and her pals “soiled savages” who didn’t belong on the faculty  — whereas they sat within the lunchroom. Faculty officers “allowed it to occur and watched it,” she mentioned. 

After considered one of her Native pals punched the bully, Edwards mentioned the good friend was the one one who confronted self-discipline.

“It was the norm after we had been at school. It’s such as you both stood up for your self and received in hassle, otherwise you sat again and also you simply took it, as a result of nothing would occur if you would report a difficulty,” Edwards mentioned.

Such conduct, Edwards mentioned, will persist “till increasingly persons are keen to face up.” Till then, bullied college students in rural communities can be left with few alternatives to be protected in school. 

“Once we’re in these small communities the closest faculty is sort of 20 miles away,” Edwards mentioned. “So it’s like going to a different faculty isn’t an choice.” 

Chase Iron Eyes is the chief director of the Sacred Protection Fund, a Native-led nonprofit devoted to defending lands, waters and Indigenous communities. He’s an enrolled member of Oglala Lakota and Standing Rock Sioux tribes. 

Iron Eyes mentioned such tales are frequent for Native households throughout the nation who “undergo these cyclic episodes of violence and bullying.” 

His messages to these kids and their mother and father: “To remain robust, to hold in there — that they’re not alone.” 

Nightmares and complications observe assault

The protection plan Nate’s faculty authorized following the assault sought to maintain his alleged bully at a distance in the course of the faculty day. Nate would additionally sometimes examine in with trusted employees. 

It didn’t forestall the classmate from threatening Nate’s life on the final day of the 2023-2024 faculty 12 months, the household mentioned — a short encounter that Nate’s older brother witnessed.

The encounter helped persuade the household to uproot to a special city, the place Nate now attends a special faculty. WXPR agreed to withhold the identify of the city for the household’s security. 

Nearly a 12 months after the assault, Nate suffers from nightmares and each day extreme complications, in addition to neck, shoulder and decrease again ache that his docs say may very well be lifelong, in keeping with medical data his mom shared with WXPR. He was lately referred to a pediatric neurosurgeon.

The household in April signed a authorized settlement with the Mercer Faculty District for phrases that remained undisclosed.  

Requested for particulars, McMurray mentioned in an e mail: “the Dad and mom and Faculty District have labored collaboratively to resolve the considerations introduced ahead by the Dad and mom. The Faculty District has expanded its library and supplied coaching to employees associated to Native American tradition.”

McMurray couldn’t reply additional, she mentioned, on account of privateness legal guidelines round pupil data. 

The Lac du Flambeau Tribal Training Division says it stays dedicated to the protection of tribal members throughout varied faculties.

“Previously now we have supplied assets to the Mercer faculty district to facilitate the safety and success of Native college students of their faculties, however we’re presently unaware of if these assets are being utilized,” the division informed WXPR in an e mail. “We’re and have been keen to work with them once more at any level if they’re , in the identical method we’re keen to work with any and all space faculties.”

On the new faculty and in a brand new group, Nate and his household try to maneuver on and heal. The varsity has extra Native college students than Mercer did.  

Nate’s uncle and godfather gave him a drum that Nate is attempting out. 

“He’s being extra grounded in his Native American tradition and roots,” his mom mentioned.