Letter: Student threats, punishment for bathroom use, among issues at Fall River school

I would like to add more information regarding Argosy Collegiate Charter School after the article that I read about the woman’s daughter being bullied.

I have 3 children who attend the school. 1 graduated last year. They have all attended since the school opened. I thought it was a really great school until a couple of years ago when numerous reports were coming out about them for various reasons.

Some of the staff is great and truly try to help the kids. But if they don’t drink the “Argosy Kool-Aid” and do what they are told they get fired. There have been so many great teachers that have lost their jobs for advocating for the students. The ones that are still around drink the Kool-Aid.

As for 2 of my children, I have had numerous interactions with the Principals and Deans of both schools. Both my children have 3.5 GPA’s or higher and are good students. They play sports and are in clubs, etc. As being a teenager has some downfalls, my daughter’s had some rough periods where they had some rough days in school, and they decided to talk to staff. Everything got so twisted, that DCF was called to my home numerous times for falsified information. Everything was cleared within 1 visit. The point is that it was an unnecessary stress on everyone involved because they twisted my daughters’ words.

Fast forward a few years (now), my daughter is being punished for ridiculous reasons and has been thrown in ISS for walking out of class because staff refused to allow her to use the bathroom. I have had meetings with staff where I have told them that if my daughter asks to use the restroom, she has the right to go. If they do not allow her to go, I have told her to walk out. Noone should be told that they cannot go to the restroom to the point of almost having an accident in the classroom.

Today (November 16th), my daughter was in ISS for this exact reason, and they had her and a few other students in the same room as an irate student was threatening to staff and to the other students. They never removed the student from the ISS room for the safety of all the other students that were behaving. This student threatened my daughter, called her many names & then raised his fist to her. They did nothing! My daughter emailed me during the day telling me what happened, so I called and text the Dean, no reply. I called and text the VP, no reply. I texted her teacher, no reply. How does a parent deal with a situation like this?

The Dean finally calls me around 4:45 p.m. to tell me there was an incident and they couldn’t do anything about it because all their staff were in meetings. So instead of pulling staff out of a meeting to deal with a possible threat in the school they let it continue.

There is so much more. I would love to put all this out there so parents are aware that this school does not do what they say. They are all about their reputation and nothing more.

Respectfully,

A disappointed and concerned mom.