WEST CHICAGO – Currier Elementary School parent Heather Brown claims an attack on her eight-year-old daughter resulted in worse consequences for her daughter than for her attacker.
She published a statement on Feb. 22, writing: “They are grooming the kids to hate anyone with white skin.”
“Completely unprovoked and when almost every rule has been violated in their policy handbook and the school district claims to have zero tolerance for bullying, they do not show evidence of it at all."
She wrote that during Zoom instruction in 2020, a teacher pointed at white children and said, “Look at how mean these kids are.”
In an interview on Feb. 24 she said her daughter hadn’t gone back to Currier, since the December attack.
In her statement, she wrote that her daughter was being treated for neck sprain and trauma.
Principal Kellie Barrios did not return a call for comment on Brown’s situation.
She referred it to an information officer who said she couldn’t comment on Brown.
She said the district tries to resolve issues with parents.
When asked about the teacher who allegedly pointed to white students as "mean," the information officer said she had to go to a meeting, and hung up.
Brown claims that her daughter was assaulted on a bus on Dec. 19.
She wrote that she visited Principal Barrios who went over notes from watching video.
She wrote that Barrios claimed three girls attacked her daughter, one pulled her hair, and another hit her in the face.
"They informed us that one girl would be suspended from the bus for two weeks due to the attack,” she wrote.
She wrote that she and her husband went to view the video on Jan. 5.
She wrote that school officials asked to skip forward to the nine minute mark and she asked to view the entire video, 22 minutes.
“We watched in horror as our daughter was attacked not just once but four times,” she wrote.
She wrote that business manager Karen Apostoli said, “Right here it looks like she is getting off the bus but she comes back.”
“Which proved to us they did watch the full video and knew that there was more than just once attack on the bus," Brown wrote.
She wrote that on Jan. 6 she met with Barrios, “who had no knowledge that the attacker and my child were in two of the same classes.”
“My daughter cried and explained how scared she still was," she wrote.
“The principal then told her that it is my daughter’s job to raise her hand when she is scared in class or to go to an adult to request to leave class and be in the principal’s office.”
She wrote that she and her husband decided they wouldn’t go back, “since they were segregating our child, the victim, and not the bully.”
She wrote that bus suspension punishes a parent more than a child.
“We are the minority in this district," she wrote.
“The district showed they will not punish assault properly even if it were race based.”
She wrote that they asked for transfer yet the superintendent refused to contact the other superintendent with police reports from the incident.
“The last email to us was that they would be sending a truancy notice if they do not receive medical records from us,” she wrote.
She wrote that the district paid $55,000 for employees to take equity training.
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