Mom speaks out after 1st-grade son is attacked at school

JUNCTION CITY, Kan. (KSNT) – As students settle back into school some are already struggling with bullying.

Around 1 in 4 students are bullied in schools across the country, according to stopbullying.gov.

Last week one of those students was first-grader Josiah Lemus. On Friday Josiah’s mom, Monee Lemus got a call from Seitz Elementary on Fort Riley.

When she got there, Josiah told her he had been attacked by another student. He said the student held him by the throat and choked and kicked him in the bathroom.

“I can only imagine,” Lemus said. “He was saying he couldn’t breathe. He said he was terrified. And you could literally see the fear on his face still after it had happened hours prior.”

It’s something no parent wants to see happen to their child.

“To me that’s terrifying,” Lemus said. “When I take my kids to school I expect them to be in a place where they’re safe and I expect everyone around to make sure that they’re safe.”

She took her concerns to the Geary County School District and now Associate Superintendent Lacee Sells said they’re looking into what happened to Josiah.

“We look at these situations seriously and take part in what we consider an investigation from here at the education center seeing what did or didn’t happen at the school level,” Sells said.

Lemus said it’s bigger than just Josiah and wants to see all schools take bullying seriously.

“I have to make an example out of this for the safety of other children. I feel like if I don’t, if I let this go under the rug it could be someone else’s child and it could be worse,” Lemus said.

While Lemus said she wasn’t happy with how the school handled the situation, the district said the school did everything that it could and followed their policy.

To prevent bullying, experts recommend talking to your kids about it, modeling positive behavior at home and encouraging them to talk to teachers or other staff if bullying happens to them or other students.