Tamar60

Mama, This could have been my post. Same thing happened to my son in middle school (no supervision before school or recess). My ds was new in town and the ringleader was merciless (main bully is now an alcoholic punk 10 years later and went OTD long ago). Then in mesivta there was NO superision in dorms, which could have been easily done by putting bais midrash boys on the floor with younger boys. DS was beaten up early in the year and hanhala said they would handle it. Total complete joke. By Pesach it happened again..much worse. I thought I would need to take him to ER but my older son (in medicine) said he didn’t need to. I still have pictures of him bruised and swollen. I pulled him out then.
Needless to say, the next year he went totally OFF. Became depressed, drugs….the works. We put him finally in a coed day school where everyone was nice to each other. He couldn’t believe people were so kind! It took a while but he excelled in academics and is now graduating from an Ivy League university next year. He still carries very deep emotional scars and is mostly angry at rabbonim who did NOTHING, looked the other way.
I was basically threatened that my other kids would’t find shidduchim. It was ugly! The system is sick!!! I should have gone to the police but was truly intimidated, much to my shame.
Thank Gd for Chabad on Campus that is slowly bringing ds back, with kindness and warmth.