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First Posted: 4/16/2013 3:31:23 PM

HANOVER TWP. – Dawn Mendygral is encouraged by the outpouring of support she and her son have received since going public on Thursday with allegations of bullying by a teacher.
“I expected some response,” Mendygral, 41, of Hanover Township said. “I was inundated. It’s a positive thing. Jared is happy, too.”
Mendygral and her son, Jared Swank, an 18-year-old senior at Hanover Area Junior/Senior High School, met with members of the press on Thursday afternoon and Mendygral addressed the Hanover Area School Board Thursday night.
They say a teacher used her iPhone to videotape Swank, who is openly gay, and his transgender date dancing at the prom last week and then uploaded the video to a computer and showed it to students in her science class three days later.
Though Mendygral and her son have identified the teacher, The Times Leader is withholding the name because it has not been independently confirmed she is the subject of investigation by Hanover Area school officials.
Mendygral said she and Swank have a meeting and interview scheduled with district officials on Tuesday as part of that probe.
They went public with the allegations with assistance from the NEPA Rainbow Alliance because Mendygral complained to the school principal in the past about bullying incidents and was that told they would be looked into, but the bullying continued and got worse, Mendygral said.
Mendygral said she has spoken with an attorney about the issue but has not retained counsel. “My goal was not to sue her, my goal was to expose her,” she said.
Mendygral said several former Hanover Area students have contacted her and applauded her going public because they too experienced bullying in the school district when they were students, with some naming the same teacher involved in the video incident.
Both Mendygral and Lori Prashker-Thomas, program assistant at the Rainbow Alliance, said current and former students should report any past bullying by teachers to Superintendent Anthony Podczasy so that it’s put on record in the investigation and so the school board can be made aware that a problem of bullying by teachers does exist in the school district.
A pervasive problem
A 2005 study by Alan McEvoy, professor of sociology and department head at Northern Michigan University, suggests that bullying by teachers is a pervasive problem.
Data in the study, titled “Teachers Who Bully Students: Patterns and Policy Implications,” suggest that school policies and responses to reports of abusive behavior by teachers generally are ineffective or do not exist, and few schools have any avenue to address legitimate grievances.
The study defines bullying by teachers or other school personnel, such as coaches, as “a pattern of conduct, rooted in a power differential, that threatens, harms, humiliates, induces fear or causes students substantial emotional distress, and serves no legitimate academic or ethical purpose.”
Significant is the fact that a teacher who bullies usually receives no retribution or other negative consequences. The classroom is the most common place for such bullying to occur, McEvoy says.
Bullying by a teacher is similar to peer-to-peer bullying in some respects.
“Victims may be chosen on the basis of apparent vulnerability (for example, someone who can’t or won’t fight back), or because the target is seen as someone others will not defend (for example, gay or lesbian), or because of some devalued personal trait,” McEvoy says.
McEvoy says that once targeted, the victim is treated in a manner that sets him or her apart from peers, and there may be frequent references to how the student differs from others who presumably are more capable or valued. As a consequence, the student may also become a scapegoat among peers.
Teachers who bully feel their abusive conduct is justified and will claim provocation by their targets. They often will disguise their behavior as “motivation” or an appropriate part of instruction. And sometimes they disguise abuse as appropriate disciplinary response to unacceptable behavior by the target, McEvoy says.
“The target, however, is subjected to deliberate humiliation that can never serve a legitimate educational purpose.”