(WSVN) - This week, South Florida students are on spring break. But one teen says she needs the break more than ever — after switching schools to escape a bully. 7’s Brian Entin explains why she’s “Scared at School.”
Brian Entin: “Do you know why she targeted your daughter?”
Mom: “No. There really is no reason. There is no reason.”
This mom and her 15-year-old daughter say they don’t know why it started.
Teen: “She just turned on me. She didn’t like me.”
But they say the bullying at McArthur High School in Hollywood got worse and worse.
Mom: “She just called nonstop. Harassed my daughter nonstop. Every way you can think about it, she did.”
They say the harassment turned into a threat from the other student.
It’s why they aren’t showing their faces.
Brian Entin: “What did she say?”
Teen: “That she wanted to shoot me.”
Mom: “I told them something needs to be done because my daughter’s safety is in danger. I mean, how can she be in school with someone threatening to shoot her?”
The teen and her mom filed a police report and got a letter from the school — a “formal notice of investigation” into their bullying complaint.
Brian Entin: “Did you feel like the school took it seriously?”
Teen: “McArthur? No.”
Mom: “It was bad to the point I was there almost every day.”
After meetings with the principal, he teen says the bully was still in school, and she still felt threatened.
So she was allowed to transfer to a different high school in Hollywood.
Teen: “I was relieved because I didn’t know anyone. It was a fresh start for me.”
But then came the real surprise. The teen says, after switching schools — coming here to Hollywood Hills for a fresh start — the bully followed her.
Mom: “I was in shock. It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, it is common sense not to put this girl in the same school as my daughter.”
A Broward County Public Schools spokeswoman turned down an on-camera interview request, but in a statement said in part: “School administrators were made aware of a complaint, which they investigated and determined was the result of an interpersonal conflict between two students involving social media posts.”
She said administrators and the Hollywood Police Department’s school resource officer “…were in the process of working with the students and parents involved.”
But the district, citing student privacy laws, would not answer why the accused bully was allowed to transfer to the same school as her alleged target.
A spokeswoman would only say, “Transfer requests … were in accordance with district guidelines.”
Brian: “It makes it hard to move on, I bet.”
Teen: “Yes, because she is constantly saying stuff. I don’t want to be in class. I don’t want to go to school. I don’t enjoy school because of her.”
The family is worried the only solution will be for the teen to transfer schools again. And she wonders why she’d be the one who has to leave.
The teen told an officer she has not been threatened at their new school, but still felt intimidated by the girl looking at her. That student denies any intimidation, according to a recent police report.
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