So I’ve been getting bullied all school year in jasper Jr high school in TX on January 15 2026 I had enough of I so I beat the living crap out of him so now I’m in daep (for those who don’t know what it is its a Distant Alternative Education Program). My dad says that in 8 business day if the boy named [NAME REMOVED] is not in there with me I will be un-enrolled from jasper isd and the media and a lawyer will be contacted.
Welcome.
In my Jr High I was bullied by jerks who werent athletes at all (then i got into weight lifting and my dad taught me to box).
Most schools today have strict anti-bullying rules, but too many staff just ignore it when they see it happening. But it has been happening since there were schools. Girls do it too.
I suggest actually reporting it- or having your parents do so- in writing to the school board and Principal.
it hasn’t been but 2 months since a girl here in jasper in 7th grade committed suicide because of bullies and we actually report it.
To put it bluntly, because athletes are seen as more important.
It’s not right. But the admins are unwilling to go after the starting QB of the football team.
Moderating
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, @Haydenlilly.
I have removed the name of the student from your post, as the posting of real names violates the privacy policy of this message board. You are free to discuss your issues here, just don’t use someone’s real name in a post.
Also, I have moved your post from our Factual Questions forum/category to In My Humble Opinion, since your post is more of an advice and opinion topic than something that is purely factual.
I don’t understand. You are apparently well able to defend yourself, so how is it you put up with bullying for so long (“all school year” I presume means since September, so around 4 months or more)? Your thread title references athletes, but apparently you were able to beat him up so severely that you are being punished?
Or was this bullying not physical, but psychological? Perhaps online? You seem to think that school authorities should have been aware of this bullying, so it must have been out in the open. Would you care to mention what form the bullying took?
If you truly have been wronged, it sounds like your father has the situation well in hand. Popular students generally get away with more than other students, and there’s not much that even parents can do to change that. Teachers and administrators are human, and tend to respond positively to the same traits in students that make them popular with their peers. This can be disappointing and disillusioning for teens, who may expect adults to be fair; realizing that life isn’t fair is one of the hallmarks of maturity. Perhaps you can consider this a growing experience for your formative years.
I think this is a good post. Neither physical nor psychological/cyber bullying should be tolerated - especially not for 1 year. I presume you and yout parents alerted the school?
But additional details are needed before I’ll agree that “beat[ing] the living crap out of” the bully was warranted.
My son was verbally bullied for some time. We repeatedly raised it with the school. Nothing permanent was done. One time in middle school my son sruck back physically. (Did not “beat the crap out of him,” but definitely landed some hard strikes. He was suspended briefly. But amazingly, the bullying stopped! 
In retrospect, I regretted having previously insisted that my kids never respond physically to bullies, and instructed them that the school personnel would protect them.
Not to be flip, but you live in Jasper. It’s far from being one of the lights of civilization.
That said, the proper response is to go to the teacher, then the principal, then the district. And then the TEA if that doesn’t work.
The problem is the district don’t care they really don’t even after a girl killed herself over it and had reported it time and time again.
@Haydenlilly : are you looking for advice here, or are you just wanting to vent? Either is fine, but it’s not clear from your posts what you’re asking for here.
There is to many wanna be gangster in jasper tx so at fist i was kind of scared of my house getting shot up because the im from in houston I was in the hood with crips and the jasper wannabes are bloods so im always wearing blue so i needed to get some people on my side.
So this has nothing to do with athletes vs. non-athletes, or popular vs. unpopular, but is instead a gang affiliation problem?
I have no advice to offer that would be welcome here.
What does this have to do with the title of your thread?
Been there.
The 1970s, in Wisconsin.
The School didn’t care, my Dad was too drunk to “get” what was going on, & my Mom never had anybody dislike her in her life. “You should try to get along with your friends at school” she said.
No help.
Eventually, I barricaded myself in the Nurse’s Office, & refused to leave. My Parents finally grasped that something was wrong. I was put in Catholic school, where things slightly improved.
Still bullied though, until I went to college.
I’d like to ask our OP if you’ve called/emailed the Texas Violent Gang Task Force to prod them into working with the Jasper police department.
I imagine contacting them could feel pointless. But if enough people call and complain, they could just intervene sometime, where they might come to board meetings to take some action.
I’m at my job - otherwise I’d look up the contact info myself. I meant to add that to my message.
I can’t find a site that isn’t social media, but this is apparently true.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DR0dYmujEpB/?igsh=MWpycndxamM1ZHMyMg==
Here’s why some schools may sometimes turn a blind eye to some misbehavior by athletes (is that enough disclaimers?): because athletes, particularly in high-profile sports like (gridiron) football, bring in money to the school - ticket sales, concessions, sponsorships, etc. If the Principal suspended every athlete who beat up another kid, why, the star quarterback might have to miss a big game. And that won’t do.
That’s a rough place to be for sure.
The truth is tackling mental health problems like bullying and suicide is really, really hard. People have been trying to stop bullying in schools for at least 100 years and it’s still there. If the district hired enough therapists to ID every bully, convince them they need help and give them therapy, it would easily cost them a million dollars a year.
The leaders of the district might care or they might not, it can be hard to tell sometimes. And how the people who work there feel and the district’s policy can sometimes be very different.You might think of the school district as a powerful thing but it’s probably just a small underfunded organization.
For you and your group it’s very personal, and you want a lot of help. But they have to use the same money for all mental health issues that affect learning in the entire town. It’s normal to provide some counselling after a suicide but there’s no law that says you have to and the money that pays for it has to be taken from somewhere else.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but in the real world these issues are complicated and difficult.
Sorry if this sounds kind of grim. But it’s how the adult world works. The best thing you yourself can do is try and keep your nose clean, ask for help when you need it, make sure your friends know you care about them and don’t give up. That way, even if rest doesn’t work out, you can at least say you did your best on your part.
I can relate. In 8th grade I experienced extreme bullying. I had moved to Guam in the middle of the school year, and I was in a situation where I was now a minority as a white kid. I got picked on frequently because I was new, I was not particularly large, I didn’t really know anyone, and I was different.
I usually did a fairly good job talking myself out of fights but it didn’t always work. We tried to go to the authorities (in school or elsewhere) but this was the very early 90s, the prevailing thought was “kids will be kids”, and nobody really cared. I ended up finishing the rest of the year being home-schooled, where I basically taught myself by reading books and taking tests that the Department of Education on Guam mandated.
In 9th grade I started high school, which was a completely different school and a different environment. I didn’t have any of the problems of the previous school, which was a badly-funded, dysfunctional mess; every classroom was an outdoor portable building, the bathrooms were broken, cockfights were done out in the open on a daily basis, and so on. My new school was not great, but it was run more like a real, normal school, and I did fine.
My point is just that this unfortunately isn’t anything new. I think it has always been a problem. Just do your best to get through it, follow the good advice of people here, and know that life isn’t always going to be like this.