A frustrated mom that stormed into an elementary school classroom to address the bullies of her third-grade son has been arrested on a charge of disturbing schools and released on a personal recognizance bond.
On May 17, Jamie Rathburn of Simpsonville entered Greenbrier Elementary School, just before 8 a.m. during the morning drop-off.
A security video showed she walked past security without signing in at the office. She walked straight up to her son’s classroom and addressed the children lined up, waiting for class to begin.
The investigating deputy said she “lifts her finger in a pointing manner and circles around as if making sure all the kids heard her and were listening.”
Later Rathburn posted a “video rant” on Facebook, according to the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office. Rathburn admitted on video that “she snuck into the school and confronted kids that she estimated to be nine years old.” It added, “She was not playing around and that they better stop messing with her kid.”
One teacher reported that she heard Rathburn yelling that she didn’t know “who was bullying her son but that she was going to find them and their moms.” In another statement to police, the teacher said that Rathburn “cursed him repeatedly,” once he was able to get into the classroom. She then rushed off before the police could get there.
“I am absolutely ashamed of myself for the actions of walking up into that school,” Rathburn said in an interview with The Greenville News. “You know, I owe the parents, the children and the staff an apology for that. Absolutely, it was wrong. But honestly, I don’t know how I could have gotten my message across any other way.”
Three days later, Rathburn was arrested and charged with disturbing schools and released the same day. She now is no longer allowed on school property and has been placed on trespass notice for all Greenville County schools.
“I can’t go eat lunch with my children,” she said. “I can’t watch them on field day. As class mom, that’s devastating.”
Rathburn had sent an email to her son’s class teacher, saying the boy had been picked on because of his hair.
“Picking becomes bullying really quickly nowadays, and I’ve taught my kids not to tolerate it, so before something transpires could you address it,” Rathburn asked in the email, reported The Greenville News.
“I’m frustrated with the children’s actions, but at the end of the day I’m angry with the adults involved in this situation because we are the ones with the power to stop this,” Rathburn said.
According to Rathburn, during the school year her son suffered from “random bouts of depression,” his grades went down, he woke up with nightmares and tried to make excuses for not going to school.
At some point, Rathburn said, he would no longer tell her what happened at school because nothing seemed to change. She still knew what was going on, though, because he “wears his heart on his sleeve.”
“We have 91 schools,” Brian Sherman, assistant to the school district’s superintendent said. “Most of our principals make 200 to 300 decisions a day. Anybody making 300 decisions a day will make mistakes.”
Rathburn admitted that she was bullied constantly herself when she was at school, to the point of depression and considering suicide at the age of 13.
Rathburn started a Facebook page called Moms over Bullies, where she tries to raise awareness of the seriousness of bullying in school and the emotional and psychological impact it may have, as well as on ways to how to discover it and how to avoid it.
“I don’t know if what I’m doing is right or wrong, but what I do know is I have to do my best,” she said. “My one job that’s more important than anything else in this life is to make sure that they are better than me, to make sure that they are better than my husband, to make sure they have had a better upbringing and outlook on life than what we had.”
