A South Carolina mother has been arrested and is facing charges after storming into an elementary school classroom to confront the group of children she suspects bullied her third-grade son.
Surveillance footage captured the moment the mother-of-two Jamie Louise Rathburn, 34, marched past security and into the classroom at Greenbrier Elementary School on May 17 at around 8 a.m during the morning drop-off.
Rathburn later uploaded a 6-minute, 44-second “video rant” on Facebook, admitting that she “snuck into the school and confronted kids that she estimated to be nine years old,” according to the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office.
In the clip, Rathburn explained how she wasn’t certain which boy she was looking for, but she wanted them to know that “she was not playing around and that they better stop messing with her kid,” the report added.
The video has since been removed.
During the incident, the mother shouted that she didn’t know “who was bullying her son but that she was going to find them and their moms,” one teacher reported.
In a separate statement to police, the teacher added that when he entered the classroom, Rathburn “cursed him repeatedly,” before leaving.
She was arrested three days later on a charge of disturbing schools and has since been released on a personal recognizance bond, according to a police report.
“I am absolutely ashamed of myself for the actions of walking up into that school. You know, I owe the parents, the children, and the staff an apology for that,” she said.
“Absolutely, it was wrong. But honestly, I don’t know how I could have gotten my message across any other way.”
He had been called names, bullied about his hair, hit with a computer, and pushed off a slide by his throat, she claimed.
This then caused him to suffer from nightmares, slipping grades, and he began to make excuses for not going to school, she said.
And after repeated complaints to school administrators, the mother-of-two said the only thing which had been done was separate the other students from her son during break times.
“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 said in an email to her son’s class teacher, 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.
Since the incident, the 34-year-old has created a Facebook group named “Moms over Bullies,” which aims to shed light on the emotional and psychological impact bullying has on students in school.
