MONTCLAIR – A mother and daughter are facing a precarious dilemma as the latter has allegedly been targeted by bullies.
Natalie Hackett, the mother of the child, filed a tort claim against the Montclair School District. The daughter was initially pulled from class, but faced the possibility of being held back if she did not return.
Hackett herself is intimately involved with school matters, as she holds experience as a principal in West Orange and under the employ of Montclair Public Schools.
When MPS hired Hackett over the summer of 2018, she moved back to Montclair and transferred her daughter from West Orange’s Mt. Pleasant Elementary School to Buzz Aldrin.
That happy homecoming, however, began to unravel two weeks into the 2018-19 school year. It began, said the tort claim, when two students slammed a door in the daughter’s face mid-September.
It continued with online and in-person and name-calling and insults by other students Oct. 14, 2018 until the chat group disbanded in January 2019. The false wig and weave campaign, where she was called “wig girl” and some tried to tug at her hair for authenticity, started here.
The daughter was invited to another chat group that December, only for other group members called to kick her out by Feb. 4, 2019.
One student found an earlier-recording of the daughter singing at a local Dunkin’ Donuts and played it to a group of fellow students at the donut shop around Jan. 1. The video player singled her out and insulted her in retaliation for her reporting on them
Each of the above incidents, in the tort filing, concludes with “the School District was made aware but had failed to perform an investigation and further failed to implement applicable policies and procedures.”
“I didn’t understand why my daughter kept saying she wanted to go back to West Orange,” said Hackett. “Then, after she got a new phone, I discovered the (chat group) texts.”
While the District has declined to speak on the matter due to its legal ramifications, MPS Superintendent Dr. Jonathan Ponds sent us the following: “I assure you that Montclair Public Schools investigates all incidents or allegations of harassments, intimidation and bullying. There are age-appropriate consequences for students found to have violated our policies. In addition, safety protocols are individually and carefully developed for students as appropriate. The safety and welfare of our students is of utmost importance.”
