Bullying Case Against A South Jersey School Board Moves Forward
TRENTON, N.J. (CBS) - The New Jersey attorney general's office has announced that it finds "probable cause" against a Gloucester County board of education for allegedly not taking appropriate measures to put a stop to race-based bullying of a student.
The case, first filed in 2007, involved alleged incidents at the Main Road School, in the Franklin Township School District, between 2005 and 2009.
The complainant in the case is the father of an African-American girl who claims his daughter was verbally harassed from third to sixth grade and the district did not adequately deal with it.
"Our findings concludes that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the school district did not take sufficient -- both remedial and affirmative -- action to make sure that this action did not take place," said Chinh Le, director of the Division of Civil Rights in the Office of the Attorney General for the State of New Jersey.
Le says the next step will be to bring the parties in to the attorney general's office to attempt conciliation, to reach a resolution and to make sure it doesn't happen again.
"If that fails," Le says, "then in all likelihood the case will then proceed to the Office of Administrative Law here in the State of New Jersey, and then one of deputy attorneys-general will prosecute the case."
Reported by John McDevitt, KYW Newsradio 1060
