A Florida mother says she was left with no choice but to take legal action after repeated pleas to stop her 13-year-old daughter’s bullying at Thomas E. Weightman Middle School went unanswered by school officials.
Tosha (not her real name), the mother of the victim, says her daughter’s ordeal began last September, just one day after starting school in Pasco County — and quickly escalated to racial slurs, locker room harassment, and cyberbullying.
According to a news report from WFLA’s 8 On Your Side, the school’s initial response was to issue a “no contact” order, but Tosha says the bullying continued despite it.
“I lost count of how many times I’ve been in the school,” Tosha told reporters. “It was always, ‘We’re going to talk to the parents. We spoke to the child. It’s not going to happen again.’”
Tosha says she escalated the issue to the school district, requesting mediations and meetings with board members and the superintendent. Her daughter reportedly told district officials she was afraid, but according to Tosha, no meaningful intervention followed.
Growing increasingly alarmed, Tosha contacted the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office — approximately six times, she says — and ultimately filed for a civil injunction in court. A Pasco County judge granted the injunction, finding the allegations serious enough to legally prohibit the alleged bully from stalking her daughter.
However, Tosha claims the accused student violated both the no-contact school order and the civil injunction. Despite this, the school’s final conclusion, detailed in a report sent to Tosha, confirmed that her daughter had indeed been bullied, cyberbullied, and harassed by the same individual — yet offered no disciplinary action for the alleged perpetrator.
Instead, Tosha says the school gave her a transfer form and told her she could remove her daughter from the school:
“Their final conclusion was that she has indeed been bullied… And instead of giving any type of consequences to the child, they gave me a paper that says you can now move your child outside of school.”
The 8 On Your Side team contacted the Pasco County School District, which responded that Florida statutes prohibit them from releasing confidential student information.
