I have three children who attend Norview High School- two freshmen and one senior.

On May 6 (this past Saturday), my son received an alarming video in a group text full of other Norview students. In the video, an “ai” voice clearly threatens Norview high school by name.

We proceeded to file tips with Norfolk Public School’s tip line, Vector Tips, and the Norfolk Police Department’s tip line, p3tip.

Neither of these alerts went anywhere or resulted in any contact.

The next day, Sunday, May 7, I made a post on Nextdoor to alert other parents. Sunday afternoon, i received a phone call from a school administrator… not because of the vector tip information, but because she received a “screenshot of a screenshot” of my Nextdoor post. Then there was a connection to Norfolk police and i gave a statement to a detective with all the information we had.

My children were nervous about going to school on Monday, but they got in the car and went. Upon arriving, they saw that Norview High School’s administration did not even find it necessary to put in place the metal detectors already owned by Norview High. They sat beside the entrance doors, as they usually do. Useless pieces of machinery, that taxpayers have already paid for.

Feeling unsafe, they came home without even entering the building.

Yesterday, on Tuesday, May 8th, my children returned to school. Upon entering the building, my oldest son, who had reported the video as instructed to do- “if you see something, say something”, began receiving verbal and physical harassment because he made the report. He was pushed, shoved, struck, and then his wallet stolen.

No adult in the school building did anything to stop this behavior.

I instructed him to come home.

In our home, “snitches” don’t get stitches. Reporting a danger or threat is something we applaud in our home.

In a nation where school shootings are basically a weekly occurrence, a student being punished by his peers for reporting a school threat while the staff, teachers, and administration at the school sit by and do nothing is truly beyond the pale. It’s unconscionable. It’s absurd. It’s sickening.

None of my three children feel safe at Norview High School. They are good students, with good grades; they do not participate in violence, they have never been a part of a fight at Norview, they do not skip school or shirk their duties at school. And yet they are the repeated targets of acts of violence, harassment, and bullying while administration sits on their hands and not only does nothing, they provide weak excuses for the problematic, violent students and bend over backwards to ensure those students are kept at school. Why? To retain funding?

When are all students’ safety going to be a priority in Norfolk Public Schools? When are the students who show up, who go to class, and who do their work and are trying to get an education going to be a priority to Norfolk Public Schools?

I went to high school in the 1990’s. If a student was repeatedly involved in violent altercations, they were removed from that school environment. Expelled. They can pursue their education through a GED or an alternative school, but we were not expected to just “deal” with a violent classmate. Ever.

Further, if we were being physically bullied in high school in the 1990’s, our parents would advise us to defend ourselves. Now, if a student fights back against their abusers, they are punished exactly the same as the instigator, regardless of how many witnesses or video evidence exists that they were assaulted first.

What that does, what you’ve created, is an environment where we have to instruct our children to either be “part of the problem” by defending themselves or become victims. I don’t want my children to live in a victim mindset. I don’t want them to feel like victims. They are high school kids, not prisoners. They shouldn’t have to decide whether to sacrifice their disciplinary record to defend themselves from bodily harm, and they shouldn’t have to consistently “play victim” going to administrators who ultimately don’t just do nothing, but actively back, support, and defend their bullies, stripping good kids like mine of their fundamental dignity.

Additionally, this does nothing to prepare them for the real world. In the ‘real world’, if a coworker assaults me, I can defend my person, I can press charges, and the individual responsible for the violence will be held accountable by a court of law.

Ergo, you’re not teaching the bullies in our schools that their behavior will have consequences in the ‘real world’, and you’re not teaching all the other students that in the ‘real world’, you absolutely have the right to defend yourself against violent attack. You are literally creating two kinds of people: violent offenders... and helpless victims.

I want real answers. I am tired of being placated by lazy administrators who do nothing to stop bad student’s behavior and expect good students to keep “just taking it”. I am tired of all the talk and no action.

We want violent students to be expelled and not allowed to return to continue to batter other students.

We want a clear, actionable pipeline of discipline, not just on paper but ACTUALLY IMPLEMENTED.

We want students who follow the rules to be believed and not blamed or shamed for reporting problematic, violent behavior.

We demand better for our kids. We demand answers and real solutions.