East Street School

"We were tortured daily. Our human rights were violated everyday. They turned the heater on in the cafeteria and made us run a full hour. When a child finally said this is wrong...Mr. Campbell, who was in charge of PT, grabbed him by the waist and slammed him on the ground. The child, who was maybe 12-14 years old, was hurt and no one cared. Then Mr. Campbell dragged the child by his arm to the principals office. Our teacher, Mrs. Fryerson, witnessed this happen and didn't speak up. The officer who witnessed this, Officer Brown, did nothing. The guidance counselor witnessed this, and did nothing. Mr. Campbell had a special room where he would force male students who didn't wear a belt to school to take their shirt, pants, shoes, and socks off. He would wet them with water and make them stand up with the air conditioner on high until they were dry. Mrs. Fryerson would laugh about the inhumane treatment of boys by Mr. Campbell. During our leap and Iowa tests we were told to hurry up and mark each answer on the multiple choice, because she said "I don't feel like dealing with all this". Mrs. Fryerson never taught us a lesson she would turn off the lights after lunch, and make us take a nap until it was time to leave. Our final day there, Mr Campbell would torture us. He would force us to have 3 hours of PT. He would make us bend at the waist with our hands on the ground. He would make us stay in that position for 20 minutes at a time. If we lost our balance or moved in any way, he would push our face into the ground. Then we owed him 20 push-ups. He continued this the full 3 hours. He intentionally tried to break us so we had to stay there longer. I bet you're wondering what I did wrong to end up there...I was being bullied. Every time I used my words to defend myself I was the one written up. I said a bad word. Only 2 occasions I used my words and ended up in this horrible place. I was only 12 years old."

"big"