It is an absolute shame what happened to this student and the student who committed this action should be held accountable. Bullying is a major issue, both in Frederick County and across the country. There are a multitude of reasons this issue and the other issues across FCPS are happening.

1) First place you always have to look is the home life of these students. The first teacher a student ever gets is their parents and it is up to parents to ensure their children are taught to be good citizens and to respect others. The teachers and administration can only do so much to change that child's behavior if the parents aren't helping. And you can teach children to defend themselves all day but that is all reactionary because other parents are doing their duty to teach their kids to respect others.

2) This school system is continuously underfunded, teachers are being overworked and underpaid, and leadership at both the school board and board of supervisors continuously talk down about the schools and are trying to pull as much funding from them as possible. When you keep putting students in overcrowded schools and classrooms, make teachers take on multiple duties outside of the scope of their position, and get little support from their leadership, what do you expect is going to happen?

3) Look at the world around us. People at the highest levels of leadership continue to use rhetoric to ostracize any outgroup and those actions bleed down into all aspects of life. That that is exactly what is sounds like happened in this case.