An attack on one Boston middle school student has left a mother “sick” to her “stomach.” Now, officials in the school district say they are making safety and anti-bullying one of their “top priorities.”

Video of Tina Trent’s eighth grade daughter getting jumped by a group of other Young Achievers School students in Mattapan on Monday, Oct. 3, circulated on the internet at the top of the week. The mom said she felt “sick to [her] stomach,” after hearing her daughter’s call for help and then seeing the video.

WCVB Screengrab/Google Maps

“They lured her to an area like where they know no staff is,” she continued to describe the beating to Boston 25 News.

An investigation is now underway after Trent complained to authorities.

While the recent attack is making headlines, Trent says her daughter has been being bullied for weeks by a group of girls. The mom states that she wants the school administration to take action, fearing this will happen again if nothing is done. She also does not want to transfer schools, which is a move under consideration in light of the recent attack.

However, moving her child doesn’t seem fair to the mom.

“She loves it there, and it’s not fair that she should have to be transferred or go to another school because she’s not safe there when they have known students who are trouble,” Trent said.

Officials in the Boston Public School system promise to make sure the child is safe and want to foster within the district a culture of security for all kids, a statement released by administrators on Friday, Oct. 7 said. 

“Our top priorities are keeping our school communities safe and supporting the whole child,” the press release stated. “Boston Public Schools takes all allegations of bullying and violence incredibly seriously.” 

This comes after a report was released in May of 2022 revealing bullying is on the rise in Boston schools.

WGBH reports, “District data shows more than an 80% increase in complaints to 440 so far this year, compared to the 243 complaints in 2018-2019, the last full year of in-person learning.”

Experts have made a direct connection between the rise in bullying to the unusual circumstances of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Elizabeth Englander, director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center at Bridgewater State University, believes children are returning to school with a lack of age-appropriate social skills and maturity. 

“We’re just going to have to sort of understand that we’re going to have to spend some time focusing on mental health issues. You know, this is going to have to be the focus for a little while until these kids are kind of more stabilized,” Englander explained. 

According to the district, Superintendent Mary Skipper wants the community of stakeholders, including faculty, students, and families, to support children enrolled in the BPS on a holistic level, not only dealing with the “trauma caused by the pandemic,” but also when getting to the bottom of kids under her watch being picked on.

Saying, Skipper is “committed to investigating all allegations of bullying,” and hopes everyone joins in her fight to stop.

“The Code of Conduct offers progressive discipline measures partnered with internal resources, including Succeed Boston and Restorative Justice, to mitigate violence and bullying and provide social-emotional support to promote positive social interactions among students,” the statement continues.

The district also said, “Boston Public Schools is taking several steps to decrease bullying and make students feel safe and welcome. We are focused on increasing access to social and emotional learning, enhancing de-escalation practices, enforcing the code of conduct, promoting restorative justice and peer mediation, and fostering strong student-staff relationships to ensure students have access to a trusting adult.”

“We have increased district and school-based support to ensure that this access is practical and accessible to all,” the release concluded.

Still, Englander noted that fixing the bullying problem is not going to be easy, “the protocol for it [bullying] is prevention. It’s very difficult to fix bullying after it’s happened. It’s a much better policy to try to prevent it in the first place.”

One policy question is how transparent is the school willing to be about bullying on their premises and the reprimand for students that engage in this behavior.

Trent said no one ever reached out to her from the school, a pilot for students from kindergarten through eighth grade that focuses on science and math, regarding her child being beaten up, and officials were not the most open to working with her the day of the altercation.

“I never got a call from the school,” Trent recalled. “My daughter called me from her cell phone, I hurried there, and when I got there, they never let me in the building.”

Trent said the school administration actually “called the police” on her because she “refused to leave without some answers.”

What she discovered was that the group was teasing her daughter for telling on them. 

Footage captures the students chastising the victim, and her trying to walk away from the confrontation. 

While her daughter wasn’t looking, several students came from behind her and grabbed her by the hair, and dragged her to the ground. After a while, other youths joined the melee and kicked and punched the victim, even pulling her hair out, according to WCVB.

One of the particularly rough students was a boy.

“He’s kicking her, you can see in the video, you can see his shoe kicking her while she’s down on the ground and everyone’s on top of her,” Trent said. “My daughter said her neck hurts, she’s been complaining of headaches since Monday.”

Trent’s greatest complaint is about how long it took for any grownups to step in to stop the attack.

The police report said, “The fight was eventually broken up by adults who appear to be employees of the school.”

Trent says the school has not met with her since the incident, and she believes they are not willing to discuss if the youth will face any repercussions for their actions.

The school may not be moving fast enough for the mom, but the police are. A police report lists some of the juveniles as suspects in an aggravated assault.