Lawsuit against the School District Proceeds

It did not have to be this way. Guy Fischer only wants a safe environment where his son can attend school without fear of harassment. But unfortunately the school district has not done enough in Mr. Fischer's mind to assure this.

On November 10, we broke this story, as I happened to be at a Davis Human Relations Commissions meeting where Harper Junior High School Principal David Inns gave a report about this incident that indicated that they had taken care of it and parent Guy Fischer came in and said that everything was not taken care of and they do not believe that their son is safe attending school. Since then this issue was brought up at the Davis City Council and School Board Meetings, received front page coverage in the Davis Enterprise, and now has been covered on at least two news broadcasts in Sacramento.

The Fischers said the school has done little to help alleviate an atmosphere where homophobic harassment is tolerated. "We have given them every opportunity to make it safe for Zachary to come back to school and they have failed to do that," said Fischer.

According to a Sacramento ABC News 10 report last night,

"Zachary Fischer says on more than 23 occasions, students used vile and offensive language, even after he reported the incidents to administrators."

Some of the worst things we cannot even repeat here, but they are quite vile and horrifying that Junior High School students would utter such things.

But district officials said that isn't true. "We feel very badly that a student was harassed and yet we also feel that we work very hard to make sure it doesn't happen or when we hear about it we stop it happening immediately," said Associate Superintendent Ginni Davis. She said that several students involved in the harassment were suspended and the parents of about a dozen others were notified so they could reprimand their own children. In addition, the principal of Harper Junior High, David Inns, said he held an assembly to inform all the students that such language is neither appropriate nor will it be tolerated.

Unfortunately, we sound like a broken record on this incident. Get Zachary Fischer back in school and worry about the rest later. It is that simple. The school district needs to make this happen. They needed to make this happen on November 11, 2006 and they need to make this happen on December 8, 2006. The lawsuit now complicates this process, but for the sake of the welfare of the student, the school district should work with the family to get the student back into school.

Please view the video of the news broadcast from Sacramento News 10 from Thursday evening.



---Doug Paul Davis reporting