A South Carolina mother was arrested after illegally entering her son’s elementary school to confront his alleged bullies, Fox affiliate KTVU reports.
According to a police report, Jamie Rathburn walked into Greenbrier Elementary School without approval and was seen yelling at a class of third-grade students and a teacher.
The director of communications for the Greenville school district, Beth Brotherton, said Rathburn had confessed she didn’t know who the bullies were. Rathburn, however, maintains she did.
Brotherton told KTVU there had been a few singular incidents between Rathburn’s son and other students but didn’t believe it was bullying, which “she defines as repeated behavior by a specific individual or specific group of people,” the site writes.
“Maybe in her mind she was going there to confront a bully or a couple of children, but in not knowing who those were and choosing to yell at dozens of innocent kids, there is nothing appropriate about yelling at other people’s children’s in a school setting after you’ve snuck in illegally,” Brotherton told KTVU.
While Brotherton said the incidents centered on a classmate making faces at Rathburn’s son or telling him his haircut was “silly,” Rathburn said it was much worse than that.
“He was told that he was ugly, that he was stupid, nobody cared, and he was called gay, he was cussed out, and when he reported those things he was told to ignore it,” Rathburn said. She said events became more violent, including her son being thrown off a ladder slide by his neck and even hit with a computer. She described the scratch marks and bruises on her son’s neck, which she showed to the principal, whom she claimed did nothing.
Brotherton said the child who allegedly knocked Rathburn’s son off the slide was held accountable.
On the day Rathburn was arrested, she posted a Facebook live video on her way to her son’s school, which spurred a “concerned citizen” to call law enforcement. The school wasn’t responsible for pressing charges.
Rathburn later apologized. She is now on a no trespassing notice and her son won’t be able to return to Greenbrier Elementary School. He will be allowed to attend another school in the same district, though.
“Anyone who chooses by their own admission to illegally sneak into a school building, yell at a hallway full of 8 and 9-year-old children, and curse an elementary school teacher in front of those children is going to get put on a no trespass notice and not be allowed back into the school for the rest of the year,” Brotherton said.
