2 years later: West York School District bus surveillance video shows woman's son bullied

A shocking, appalling school bus #bullying case out of the West York School District in Pennsylvania received much-needed air time thanks to some dogged journalism by local TV affiliate WPMT FOX43.

The station uncovered the school district’s attempt to prevent the public from viewing school bus surveillance video of a violent bullying act by two students against another. When they finally released the video, instead of just blurring the student’s faces, the entire video is blurred.

Here’s the backstory: Two years ago, Rhonda Lucky’s 10-year-old son, Ted, was bullied on the bus and punched in the face. She says Ted was asked to wait on the bus with a bloody face while the school principal talked to other students about the attack. At the time she shared pictures on social media of her son’s bruised face. On the day the incident happened, Lucky was shown the surveillance video in the superintendent’s office.

When the school board asked to view the video, however, they were stonewalled by the district administration, just like FOX43 was. In all, the district spent more than $10,000 hiding the video from taxpayers, even appealing local media’s right-to-know requests.

“I think it’s kinda hard to address bullying if you’re hiding things and not being transparent about it. They pretty much hid it. They didn’t bring it out,” Lucky said. “They didn’t want it to be out. No one was punished. Not the two kids who did it. Not my son. I even offered to punish my child in with them. The Superintendent, Mr. Davies, he flat out told me it was not a bullying incident. In my opinion, I was bullied by him.”

It took the State Supreme Court to order the video’s released.

We agree with Ms. Lucky. Shame on West York School District. I wouldn’t be surprised if it sees more litigation down the road for its inaction to address bullying.