BERNE — Paula Dunnells said she was disappointed and frustrated that none of the school board members responded to her concerns about her 12-year-old daughter being harassed at school for five years.

“I want the school board to realize this is a serious issue...this has been going on for years,” Dunnells said as she addressed the board from a lectern on Monday night.

Her daughter, Mackenzie, who tried to kill herself last month, was in the audience as her mother spoke. Mackenzie told The Enterprise earlier that she attempted suicide because she felt overwhelmed “thinking about all that has been done for five years at school and no one listened to me.”

The Dunnells say that Mackenzie has suffered physical, emotional, and verbal abuse from classmates and that staff has done little or nothing to intervene despite frequent requests from her parents.

“I want to know why the school district has not enforced teachers and staffers writing reports” on harassment as required by the state’s Dignity for All Students Act, Dunnells said to the board.

Referring to an Enterprise story that last week noted the numerical counts BKW had self-reported to the state, including zero incidents in the 2012-13 school year, Dunnells called that count “a bold-faced lie.” As well as keeping her own records, Dunnells said she had heard from other parents since the Feb. 4 Enterprise story ran saying their children, too, had suffered from bullying.

As the three school board members and two administrators seated at the table in the front of the auditorium remained silent in response to Dunnells’s questions, she went to say five years of bullying had been “blatantly ignored.”

At that, Mackenzie stood and bolted from the room.

“Yeah,” said her mother, “my daughter is very upset because people have ignored her.”

She went on, “My child should be safe…I want to know what you plan on doing to change.”

Dunnells quoted David Bryant, with student support services for the state’s Dignity for All Students Act, that “no matter how small, no matter how big the issue is, whether found to be true or found not to be true” it has to be reported.

She also said, “It’s not enough to have victims go to therapy. The bullies should have counseling.” And she mentioned students using their cell phones at school to post pictures of classmates they are making fun of and calling them names. Her daughter has been called “bitch” and “whore,” she said.

Dunnells said, since Mackenzie “was brave enough to tell the newspaper,” many parents had contacted her to say their children, too, had been harassed and nothing was done.

Another parent, Richard Ganser, stepped to the lectern to say he was “extremely upset” to read in The Enterprise that BKW had reported no incidents of harassment in 2013 because his son, now a third-grader, was bullied that year and both he and his wife had complained to the school about it.

“He refuses to take the bus because of the bullying,” said Ganser so he drives his son to school every day. This has been going on for two years, he said.

He noted that Timothy Mundell, who became superintendent this past summer, “wasn’t here then,” but, said Ganser, “Somebody needs to keep reports.”

He concluded, “I’d like to know what you’re going to do about it.”

Again, there was no response from the board table.

The only words spoken in response to the concerns raised about bullying were when board President Joan Adriance scolded Mackenzie’s brother, Harry Tyndell, for speaking crudely to Mundell.

“This is not a forum for disrespect,” said Adriance.

Tyndell identified himself as an alumnus of BKW and said, “These issues my sister is having is something that happened when I was here….What lesson are you teaching?…We trust you to teach the future of our country to be decent human beings.”

He also told the board members, if their children were suffering the physical and emotional abuse his sister had, “You guys would do everything in your power to make it right.”

Referring to Paula Dunnells’s report that Mundell had said nothing could be done because there was not enough evidence, Tyndell said, “That’s a lie…For five years, you’ve been changing her classes.” He said those changes would be recorded on school computers.

“Tim Mundell, you are a spineless little prick,” he concluded.

Last week, Mundell had told The Enterprise, “Whether this year or in years’ past, we’ve always taken seriously any allegations and investigated them…We act on these things.”

The score of onlookers in the gallery had remained silent, too, throughout the testimony on harassment. But onlookers as well as board members clapped enthusiastically when the next speaker, Sharon Nasner, scolded The Enterprise for running the story about Mackenzie’s suffering on the front page of the paper last week.

Nasner said her five children had gone to BKW and now her grandchildren attend the school. “I’ve had kids bullied and kids who have done the bullying,” she said. She said, too, “I do know what it’s like to have a child want to kill themselves.”

The newspaper, she said, should put “something nice” about the district on its front page.

“My grandson, 13, sat down to read The Altamont Enterprise. Shouldn’t our kids be proud?” she asked. “Shouldn’t they hear something nice?”

More applause followed when teacher Erin Snyder voiced “unequivocal support” for the BKW administration. She said when she called with a bullying problem it was “solved quickly.”

“We need to all work together to be good role models,” she said.

Before the start of the meeting, Mackenzie approached the Enterprise reporter to say she was thankful for the story. She said she was pleased that others had read it, had empathized with her, and some said similar things had happened to their children.

Mackenzie was particularly happy that a local veterinarian had read the article — in which Mackenzie was quoted as saying she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grows up so she can “help injured pets and animals” — and had asked Mackenzie if she would like to shadow her. Mackenzie said she is looking forward to doing that.

Dunnells had told The Enterprise earlier that she planned, at the Feb. 8 meeting, to ask the school board to send Mackenzie to another district. After Monday’s meeting, she said she had been told to discuss the matter with the board in closed session. Mackenzie has been doing her schoolwork at home since her suicide attempt on Jan. 12. The district has supplied a tutor.

“Find it and fix it”

“Our mantra has been find it and fix it,” Mundell told The Enterprise on Wednesday.

Although Mundell said he would not comment about any specific students or situations, he gave an overview of changes that have been made since he became BKW’s superintendent six months ago, working with a team of administrators new to the district.

Mundell has a degree in organizational development, he said. “Tweaking systems for better delivery of services and managing the culture go hand in hand,” he said. “People don’t see those things; they’re not visible to the lay person.”

Asked about the silence from the dais on Monday in response to the concerns parents raised about bullying at the schools, Mundell said that, at the next school board meeting, on Feb. 29, “We will share the many programs, activities, and strategies that go on in each building.”

He ran through a list of accomplishments in his brief time at the helm of the district. “We revised the student code of conduct at our Aug. 24 meeting. In October and November, we revised our safety plan, working with the sheriff’s and culminating in a lockdown,” he said. (See related story on new federal school safety directives.)

In January, Mundell went on, Susan Sloma, who had been the special-education director, got a new title — director o pupil personnel services — and new duties. “We’ve expanded her role to coordinate services for classified and non-classified students,” said Mundell, referring to students that are identified as having special needs and those who aren’t.

“Revising policy is important. Revising structure is important,” said Mundell. On Monday, the same day residents asked the board about staff training to deal with harassment, Mundell said, “I just that day signed a stack of staff-development proposals, training very much aligned with support of a caring culture.”

He went on, “A lot of school-wide supports are in place.”

Asked about BKW’s report to the state under the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) of zero incidents of harassment in 2012-13 when two parents at Monday’s meeting said they had complained about their children being harassed that year, Mundell said, “I can’t speak for people here before. When we report infractions, they are now tagged as DASA or VADIR,” he said, referring to Violent and Disruptive Incident Reporting.

He also said, “In prior years, the rules were: Only founded complaints were reported. Today, we have to report every issue.”

With the new tagged electronic system at BKW, Mundell said, reporting accurately will be as simple as pushing a button.

He went on, “We have nothing to hide. We work diligently to support students.”

He said of the new school leaders, “They all care for kids. They are all fair and firm and have high expectations...There is a lot of pride in this school system....It starts with students.”

He concluded, “It’s a small place. It should be personalized.”