Father outraged after learning son walked to class in below-freezing temperatures during school bus suspension
A 14-year-old Maryland boy was barred from riding the school bus and walked to and from class in below-freezing temperatures, and his parents are complaining that his school failed to inform them that he had been suspended.
According to local Maryland news station WDVM, Tymier Tazewell was disciplined on Jan. 28, when he defended his sister who was being bullied on the E. Russell Hicks Middle School bus in Hagerstown, Md.
“Some kid was making fun of his 13-year-old sister and she was crying, so Tymier pushed the top of his head,” Rasheem Tazewell, Tymier’s father, told Yahoo Lifestyle. Two days later, after security tapes were reviewed, Tymier was told that he couldn’t ride the bus for the rest of the week.
Rasheem alleged that his children hid the incident from him, and that the school failed to follow its official suspension policy, which involved scheduling a parent meeting followed by signed paperwork. He learned something was amiss on Thursday when the school called to report that his son had not arrive for morning classes. “I thought he was cutting class, but when I called back to get more information, I was told he arrived,” Rasheem told Yahoo Lifestyle. “The school had a late start that day, so it made sense he was late.” However, that night, Tymier’s mother, who does not live with Rasheem, discovered the boy wasn’t riding the bus and called his father.
Tymier had been making 40-minute trips to and from school in below-freezing temperatures. Sometimes his friends joined him, cutting through woods and along train tracks, Rasheem said, and the group stopped at a CVS to warm up. “When I found out, his body was aching from the cold, so I drew a bath for him,” the dad told Yahoo Lifestyle.
On Friday, Rasheem met with the vice principal, who allegedly blamed a failed effort to locate Tymier’s mother and claimed to not have Rasheem’s updated phone number. However, that day, Tymier ended up walking home, a result of another alleged miscommunication with the school.
The Washington County Public School district told Yahoo Lifestyle that it “is currently looking into this incident. It would be premature to provide a response at this time.”
On Friday, Rasheem wrote on Facebook, “As a parent seeing your kid hurt is the hardest thing to bear, seeing him trying to hold back tears of hurt, embarrassment, being humiliated because he was following directions from a teacher. I can’t even believe my lil man just went through this. This really broke me, no kid should have been through what he did in a state of emergency. No matter what I got his back to the end.”
Rasheem told Yahoo Lifestyle that the bus driver’s supervisor wasn’t helpful and he wants the school to address his safety concerns. “He was embarrassed and hurt by it,” he said. “If something had happened to him, we never would have known.”
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
Photo of elementary school principal in blackface for Steve Harvey costume resurfaces
School apologizes after teacher wore blackface during African history lesson
Substitute teacher banned from district after allegedly making racist comments to students
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