BERNE — On Jan. 12, Mackenzie Dunnells, who is 12, swallowed bleach from a bottle in her home in Berne; she wanted to die.

“I got this overwhelming feeling, thinking about all that has been done for five years at school and no one listened to me,” said Mackenzie.

“Our 13-year-old son found her seizing on the floor,” said Mackenzie’s mother, Paula Dunnells. “Our older daughter called 9-1-1.”

“I flew home,” said Mrs. Dunnells who found several police cars and an ambulance there.

“A deputy had Mackenzie cradled in his arms. She was limp and gasping for air,” said Mrs. Dunnells. “It’s the most horrific sound I’ve heard in my life.”

What was Mackenzie thinking at that moment? “Oh, my god, what have I done? I don’t want to die,” she recalled.

An ambulance took her to Albany Medical Center and, after that, she had to go to the Capital District Psychiatric Center to be cleared to come home.

The doctor there, her mother reported, “didn’t feel it was safe for her to go back to school.”

Mackenzie has since been doing her schoolwork at home. Her parents want to have the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School District pay for her to go to another school and plan to address the school board with this request at its next meeting, on Feb. 8.

Mackenzie and Mrs. Dunnells say that persistent bullying at school since Mackenzie was in third grade, resulting in physical and psychological injury, has not been addressed by a series of one- or two-year administrators. BKW had two interim superintendents over the past two years, and changeovers in principals at both the elementary and secondary schools as well.

Timothy Mundell, who became BKW’s superintendent this past summer, said he could not comment on any specifics about Mackenzie Dunnells or her claims of harassment.

He did offer blanket assurance that the matter had been handled properly. “We are bound by the New York State Law under the Dignity for All Students Act,” said Mundell. “We have a code of conduct,” he said of BKW.

He also said, “Whether this year or in years’ past, we’ve always taken seriously any allegations and investigated them.... We act on these things.”

The Dignity for All Students Act was signed into state law in 2010 and took effect in 2012. Schools across the state have been required to keep individual incident reports since July 1, 2012; their self-reported numerical counts are sent in annually to the State Education Department’s DASA reporting system.

For the 2014-15 school year, the secondary school in Berne, which has 419 students, reported 26 incidents of discrimination or harassment: four for race; three for sex; two for color; one each for having a disability, sexual orientation, and weight; and 14 others. That same year, the elementary school reported three incidents: one each for race, having a disability, and gender.

In 2013-14, the elementary school reported zero incidents under DASA and the secondary school reported 21: two for gender; and one each for race, ethnicity, and sex; and 16 others. In 2012-13, both the elementary school and the secondary school in Berne reported zero incidents of harassment or discrimination.

Mundell said of BKW, “The district has a history of support. We have a full complement of social workers and psychologists.... The middle level is an awkward period of growth and development. Our counselors help students to build social skills.”

Additionally, he said, BKW provides assembly programs for large groups of students with one scheduled for the end of February. “Point Break has been done in the past,” said Mundell.

Point Break is operated by the staff of Campus Life/Youth for Christ, which says on its website, “Our purpose in offering the Point Break Workshops is to encourage students as they develop character, confidence and responsibility.”

“I feel confident in how we address issues and support students,” said Mundell. “We are thorough in investigating every allegation that represents a conflict between students. I’m certain that has been done.”

Mundell said he could not comment on whether records had been kept or consulted on incidents involving Mackenzie Dunnells and complaints lodged by her parents. “DASA required schools to develop an incident reporting system effective July 1, 2012. DASA is silent as to parents’ rights to review them,” Jeanne Beattie, a spokeswoman for the State Education Department, told The Enterprise in an email.

Mundell also said he did not know if there was a precedent for sending a student in a situation similar to this to another school district. Further, he would not comment on a meeting he had with the Dunnells after Mackenzie’s suicide attempt.

Beattie said the State Education Department “has no legal or statutory authority to compel a school district to send a student to another district where the parents are not residents. This is a local decision and would have to be approved by the school board,” she wrote. Asked if other districts had done something similar, Beattie replied, “The department does not have any information or keep records on this matter.”

See related editorial and Paula Dunnells' letter to the editor.

Mundell went on to describe his administrative style as “hands-on,” noting that he was in the elementary school and secondary school, both located across the street from his office, every day, often “multiple times” a day.

“I pride myself on being visible. I note the schools are calm and inviting places,” he said, adding that teachers surveying the hallways report any problems to administrators and “intervene as necessary.”

Mundell also said he had recently compared data from the first quarter of this year to the first quarter of last year on three key points: attendance has improved, disciplinary referrals are down, and academic scores are on the rise, he said.

“People have commented on a marked difference in the climate and culture,” he said. “It’s important to look at the whole picture and then work with individual circumstances.”

Asked if the policies on harassment outlined in the school’s handbook had been followed, Mundell said, “We have a policy that’s written; it’s required and we’re expected to follow it.”

He concluded, “I’m as father of four.” Three of his children are daughters; the youngest is an eighth-grader. “She will be a student here in September,” Mundell said. “I have a stake in the school as does my wife.... I’ve been proactive in supporting the students.

“Administrators work with students and faculty and parents every day,” he said. Reflecting on his 30 years in education, Mundell said of BKW leaders, “They are the best...Culture is a soft thing...It can take time to evolve. The support we provide to students is positive. In any group of humans, people have their issues. We watch with mindfulness.”

Mackenzie’s story

Mackenzie started school in a pre-kindergarten class at Berne-Knox-Westerlo and all went well until the third grade, she says. At that point, a classmate whose name is being withheld — her parents could not be reached for comment, began harassing her, Mackenzie and her mother say.

“She took my friends away; she told them not to talk to me,” said Mackenzie.

Over the summer, Mackenzie recovered her usual good spirits. She comes from a close-knit family with four older siblings — three brothers and a sister. Her father, Kevin Dunnells, works as an emergency medical technician and her mother had been an EMS worker for 20 years, she said, and has been active in the Parent-Teacher Association at BKW.

Over the summer, Mackenzie enjoys camping trips with her family and last summer, she and her mother were both in a musical in Middleburgh.

Asked what she’d like to be when she grows up, Mackenzie said, “I’m going to be a traveling veterinarian. I want to go all over the world and help injured pets and animals.”

The Dunnells household has two cats, three rabbits, three guinea pigs, and one dog. Mackenzie is particularly fond of her own guinea pigs, named Gingersnap and Squeaker, and proudly shows off pictures she has taken of them on her phone.

“All summer long, she’s a happy girl,” said Mrs. Dunnells.

When school resumed, so did the harassment, the Dunnells say. “In the fourth grade, my friends said they could no longer talk to me because they were friends with [name withheld] and she wouldn’t be friends with them if they talked to me,” Mackenzie said.

“The girls would pretend to drop pencils in back of my desk and call me names...They said I was stupid and ugly and fat and would tell me I had no friends and nobody liked me,” said Mackenzie, who is a slender, intelligent girl. “I would sit in class in a personal bubble, just being sad.”

As she had the previous year, Mrs. Dunnells talked to Mackenzie’s teacher. “Every day, she separated them. She said, ‘I don’t know what else to do,’” recalled Mrs. Dunnells, who went to the principal at the time, with no results, she said.

That year, too, the ringleader told an aid at the school that Mackenzie had said she was going to bring a shotgun to school to shoot the aid. The dean of students at the time interviewed girls who were present when the threat was allegedly made, said Mrs. Dunnells. “Five girls stood up for her and said she never said that,” said Mrs. Dunnells. “She weighed 60 pounds,” she said, indicating her daughter couldn’t have fired a shotgun. “We don’t have shotguns in our house.”

The dean put Mackenzie and the ringleader who had accused her together in a room where Mackenzie recalls, “I told her I didn’t like her and wanted no contact with her.”

“He was impressed with how mature Mackenzie was, and how well she handled it,” said Mrs. Dunnells.

But in fifth grade, things got worse, the Dunnells said. “On the playground, she’d call me a ‘bitch’ and a ‘slut’ and the w-word,” said Mackenzie, referring to “whore.”

“I would sit in a corner and I would cry,” said Mackenzie. She and her mother said the aids on the playground did not intervene. When Mrs. Dunnells talked to the teachers, “They said talk to the aids,” said Mrs. Dunnells.

In gym class that year, as the girls were playing field hockey, the ringleader “beat me with a hockey stick,” said Mackenzie. “When [the physical-education teacher] looked away,” Mackenzie said, “she kept hitting me...hitting so hard, I couldn’t move, seven or eight times. It was hard; it hurt. I was screaming for [the physical-education teacher]. She [name withheld] said it was an accident.”

“We had to go to the orthopedist,” said Mrs. Dunnells. “He said there was deep muscle bruising on her right foot.”

“I had to wear a walking boot for two weeks,” said Mackenzie.

Mrs. Dunnells was required to fill out an accident report, she said, and went to see the principal — a new one from the first principal she’d seen, but not the current one. “She said she would talk to the gym teacher but we never heard back,” said Mrs. Dunnells.

In sixth grade, after a summer of relief, the harassment continued, the Dunnells said. This time, there was a new twist. Mackenzie had been sitting in a corner when a friend she had had since kindergarten “went to comfort me,” she said. Two of the girls who regularly harass her “told everyone me and her kissed,” said Mackenzie.

A teacher, perhaps meaning to be helpful, told the girls, “It’s OK if you’re lesbian or gay,” Mackenzie recalled.

“I said, ‘We’re not dating. We’re friends,’” recalled Mackenzie. But the label “lesbian” stuck and was then used as a taunt, the Dunnells said.

The principal arranged a meeting with the Dunnells and some of Mackenzie’s tormenters and their parents.

“I was very blunt,” recalled Mrs. Dunnells, “I told them, ‘It’s unacceptable my daughter has to come home crying every day...It needs to end now.’”

The ringleader’s stepfather, Mrs. Dunnells recalls, asked her, “Did you call Mackenzie and [her friend] lesbians?”

“She said, ‘Yes, I did.’ He said, ‘Apologize now. We didn’t raise you that way.’ She apologized,” said Mrs. Dunnells.

The harassment eased for a while, the Dunnells said, but then resumed. When Mackenzie started seventh grade, in the middle school, they hoped for a break from the old habits but the problems persisted, they said.

“[Name withheld] would shoulder-bump Mackenzie in the hallway and kick her shoes off,” said Mrs. Dunnells.

“It makes me feel like I’m nothing,” Mackenzie said of being bullied. Asked if there isn’t something she likes about school, she answered with a flat, “No,” then added, “Every subject, I’m with bullies.”

Mackenzie’s parents had taken to going to the school to eat lunch with her so she wouldn’t feel alone or be bullied, and they also drove her to and from school.

In a recent incident, the ringleader and her friend have claimed that Mr. Dunnells yelled at them although the Dunnells claim this is not true. They have asked the school principal to review the video taken on a school surveillance camera. “She refused to look at the video. She believed the bully over us. I have no trust in these people,” said Mrs. Dunnells of BKW administrators. “My husband is now afraid to be around this girl.”

On Jan. 12, the day Mackenzie tried to kill herself, she said some boys had called her a “f------- bitch.”

The Dunnells have kept their daughter out of school since then. They met with the new superintendent, Mundell, on Jan. 19, who said a tutor would be assigned for three to four weeks, Mrs. Dunnells said. “He said, ‘After that, we’ll integrate her back into school,’” Mrs. Dunnells reported. “Not over my dead body,” she said.

She went on to say that Mackenzie’s pediatrician since she was born as well as a therapist and the psychiatrist at the Capital District Psychiatric Center all said of her school, “It’s not a safe environment” for Mackenzie.

Mrs. Dunnells went on, “The school district failed to provide a safe environment and failed to follow up every time. I have asked to have her transported to another district.”

Mundell told her there is “not enough evidence,” said Mrs. Dunnells. She read from the school handbook that incidents of harassment are to be documented by the school and she has kept her own accounts.

Mrs. Dunnells has also spoken with David Bryant, with student support services for the state’s Dignity for All Students Act. Bryant referred The Enterprise to spokeswoman Jeanne Beattie who said it was department policy to have all media inquiries handled through the Office of Communications.

“The Dignity Act says schools have to follow up and they haven’t. No one ever has,” said Mrs. Dunnells.

She went on about her daughter, “She’s a very mature girl for her age. But these things get to her. She gets sad and quiet and cries.”

Asked what her dearest hope for the future is, Mackenzie said, “I wish all the people that were mean to me would never exist.”

Mrs. Dunnells concluded, “I’m willing to fight. After all the things I’ve done for the school, I’m not backing down.... You can’t run a school with new administrators ever year. Other families have pulled their kids out.”