BERNE — Richard Ganser, in response to allegations from a Berne-Knox-Westerlo Elementary School student and his father, says he never touched another child save his own, much less shook the BKW student.

Rather, Ganser says his own son was the victim of years of bullying from the accusing student, Cole Warnken.

Cole’s father, Matthew Warnken, had told The Enterprise that a parent had come into the school and shook his child. Cole said that the parent had thought he was another student who had picked on his son, and said that the parent then  dragged the other student by his sweatshirt to the main office.

“Not one time did I lay my hands on a child,” Ganser said at the BKW school board meeting on Monday.

“My problem with the school is, my child has been bullied for five years,” he continued, adding that nothing has been done about it by the district.

Ganser and his wife told The Enterprise on Monday that their son, a fifth-grader, has been bullied by Cole since the first grade. Then on Thursday, April 26, during school breakfast, his son was hit on the head by another student using a cell phone as a weapon. The Gansers said an aid witnessed this occur but only told the offending student to go to class.

“He’s been told to go kill himself last week by another student in the school,” Ganser said at the meeting. He brought up another student, Mackenzie Dunnells, who tried to commit suicide two years ago after she herself had been bullied for years. Her parents had criticized the district for a lack of response to the bullying, and Ganser himself said at the time that his son could no longer ride the bus for fear of bullies.

At Monday night’s meeting, Ganser addressed the district superintendent, Timothy Mundell, asking him why he had been recently told by Mundell that incidents involving only one child bullying another, or “one-on-one,” did not count as incidents to be reported in the state’s incident-reporting system under the Dignity for All Students Act, known as DASA.

“This needs to stop,” he said. “The bullying needs to stop.”

Mundell declined to comment to The Enterprise on any matters related to the district, and elementary school principal Annette Landry said she had been told not to speak to The Enterprise because it could not be guaranteed what would be printed would be accurate.

Ben Amey, who handles public relations for the district, said that Mundell had stated to the parent that an issue between two students is not automatically considered a bullying issue.

“It was never stated that one-to-one incidents do not have to be reported,” he wrote in an email.

BKW reports on harassment

Amey said that incidents at the school are investigated by the district and, if determined to be bullying, entered in the school’s student management system, which is then automatically pulled for the DASA database annually.

Jeanne Beattie, a spokeswoman for the New York State Education Department, said that the district incident reports are collected at the end of the school year and reviewed by the district before being submitted, so incidents from the current academic year are not yet logged into the database.

In the 2016-17 school year, there were no incidents reported by BKW to the state database for discrimination or harassment, or cyberbullying under DASA. Under the state’s Violent And Disruptive Incident Reporting system, known as VADIR, for last year, there were no incidents reported from the BKW elementary school.

At the secondary school in 2016-17, BKW reported three cases of bullying or harassment, two incidents of drug possession, and two other cases under VADIR.

In the 2015-16 school year under DASA, Berne-Knox-Westerlo reported nine incidents of discrimination or harassment and five incidents of cyberbullying at the secondary school and none at the elementary school reported.

Under the VADIR system in the 2015-16 school year, BKW reported five assaults, one case of reckless endangerment, one minor altercation, 34 incidents of bullying, one case of weapons possession, four cases of drug possession, six incidents of alcohol possession, and three other incidents at the secondary school. At the elementary school that year, BKW reported five incidents of assault, three cases of bullying, and two incidents of weapons possession.

In the 2014-15 school year, BKW reported 26 incidents of discrimination or harassment at the secondary school through DASA and three at the elementary school.

For the 2013-14 school year, through DASA, Berne-Knox-Westerlo reported no incidents at the elementary school and 21 at the secondary school. In 2012-13, the year DASA reporting began, BKW reported no incidents in the district.

The Gansers’ son was in first grade in 2013-14, when no incidents were reported. His parents said he was bullied then. Three incidents were reported by his school the year he was in second grade; three cases of bullying were reported the following year, too, when he was in third grade. None were reported the year he was in fourth grade and his parents say he was repeatedly bullied.

Ganser’s wife commented that not only had her son been bullied, but so had Mackenzie Dunnells during the years when no incidents were reported.

Amey said that the district has a page on its website with information about DASA, and encourages parents to contact the administration if bullying occurs.

“We run a number of anti-bullying seminars and assemblies for students … ,” he said. “Bullying is not tolerated at BKW. It’s not accepted.”

Amey confirmed that there was an incident on Thursday, April 26, when the Ganser boy said he was hit by a phone. Amey said it was resolved by the principal, and said that the district has responded to all reported incidents of bullying, including to Ganser’s child.

The incident

Ganser and his wife say they heard about their son being hit with a cellphone later that evening when he came home from his afterschool program.

A state bill would require that parents are contacted if their child is bullied. Called “Jacobe’s Law,” it has passed the State Senate and is currently in committee in the State Assembly. The bill is named after a South Glens Falls student who killed himself after repeated bullying at school that his parents said they were unaware of.

The day after the phone-hitting incident, Ganser says he went to the school without telling his son. Standing at the entryway, he said he watched his son approach the cafeteria to eat breakfast and then walk away. When he asked his son why, his son told him that three boys who bullied him were waiting there.

Ganser said that no one was at the front desk when he arrived, and he said that the doors were unlocked. Amey said that the doors in the school are unlocked in the morning because students are entering the building then. But he said that security footage shows that an aid was present in that area at the time, but had only left to retrieve a walkie-talkie.

“I don’t know if the aid saw him there,” said Amey.

Ganser said he approached Cole and asked him if he needed to see the principal, because his son had had trouble with him before. His son told him Cole wasn’t the problem, that it was the other student who had hit him with the phone. Ganser told the other student to come with him to the principal, and said that the student came with him willingly. He said the student told the principal what had happened, and he believes the student was suspended. The parents met with the principal the following Monday, Ganser said.

Ganser said the cafeteria doors were open, allowing workers there to see what happened.

Ganser said his son later was told by the other boys that his father was going to get in trouble or be thrown in jail.

Ganser said he would be bringing up the Warnkens on charges for filing a false police report about the incident.

Warnken said he has not had to meet with the school for any disciplinary reasons. He said he believes his son.

“There’s just no reason to lie,” he said.

Cole said that Richard Ganser is lying and did grab himself and his friend. He said he called Ganser’s son a name last year while playing wall ball during recess but said he hasn’t picked on him or called him names otherwise. He said that year was the only year they were in class together. Ganser’s wife said her son has had it on file since third grade to not be in the same class with Cole until secondary school.

Cole said two of his friends did speak to the principal after the alleged shaking incident. Cole said he, too, spoke to the principal at the end of the day.

Warnken said he questions the surveillance tape that was used, noting that it skipped, and said that “somebody screwed with it.”

“It’s not a skip; it’s a picture snapshot every three or four seconds,” said Amey. He says it saves data used for recordings and therefore saves money for the district.

He reiterated that both the footage and eyewitness statements determined that Ganser had not touched a child.

Ganser and his wife said that they have dealt with their child being bullied for years, mostly with verbal harassment. Ganser’s wife said that she once attended her child’s lunch and saw Cole take a hula hoop out of her son’s hands in front of her.

They also said that the school community has become insular, and that students whose parents are well-connected in the community may be more likely to be heard when they are in trouble. They say their son no longer feels like he will be heard.