Bullying Rampant in Dulce Schools

This story was originally published in the Rio Grande SUN on June 14, 2018.

Students, teachers, parents, guardians and administrators in the Dulce Independent School District deal with incidents and reports of bullying almost daily.

According to District bullying reports created between October 2017 and May 1, students have alerted school officials to being “dogged” in the hallways, pushed, teased, threatened and harassed, among other forms of bullying.

The District’s Attorney Barry Berenberg provided 103 pages of documents in response to the request, including written accounts from students about bullying incidents, emails between administrators and teachers and information about anti-bullying workshops and activities held for students, parents and guardians.

Student names were incorrectly redacted from the documents and Berenberg cited in his response letter, the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, which prohibits the release of a student’s personally identifiable information.

This includes “information that, alone or in combination, is linked or linkable with a specific student that would allow a reasonable person in the school community, who does not have knowledge of the relevant circumstances, to identify the student with reasonable certainty.”

One of the most extreme incidents at the school occurred in March.

Levi Pesata simultaneously holds the positions of Jicarilla Apache Nation president and Dulce Independent School District Board of Education president.

He has received at least one letter about bullying at Dulce High School in his capacity as Jicarilla Apache Nation President.

The March 26 letter was sent to the Nation’s P.O. Box and recounts events that occurred on March 19 and March 22. The name of the person who sent the letter to Pesata was redacted. The letter was copied to Dulce High School Vice Principal Edward Velarde, Superintendent Pamela Montoya and Jicarilla Apache Nation Police Department Lt. Stephane Montano.

According to the letter, on May 19, a girl received a two day suspension for walking out of class. That evening, she was told two other girls texted each other about her and made a threat to beat her up the next day.

The school’s juvenile officer was given a copy of the texts, and said “she would check into it with the possibility of a restraining order and texting in this manner can be a Federal crime.”

The officer never followed up on the complaint, the letter states.

On March 22, the juvenile officer, principal and security officer were informed the girl who was suspended had been assaulted by one of the girls who sent the texts containing the threat.

According to the letter, a video of the incident showed the girl being “viciously pushed” against a wall and hit twice in the face. A teacher arrived to the scene and witnessed the girl being hit again. Students walked around the teacher and the girls while the fight occurred.

“With this we felt this could have been prevented if the Juvenile Officer Letita (Julian) acted on the threat that was made via text,” the letter states. “An assault and battery was made on (redacted) and no arrest was made and we were not properly notified by any of the School staff that this incident occurred.”

Since April, Montoya has not returned calls and emails requesting an interview about the state of District.

New Mexico Public Education Department officials also have not returned phone calls and emails. 

Anti-bullying workshops

Dulce schools have taken action to prevent bullying by holding anti-bullying workshops and community events.

On Nov. 16, 2017, 10 students and their parents met in the Dulce Middle School library to discuss the “issue that has long plagued the students,” Principal Robert Cooke wrote in a school newsletter.

“This was the first time (Dulce Middle School) has attempted such a large scale meeting of students with their parents or guardians,” the newsletter states. “We were not sure what the outcome would be, but the circumstances dictated that we try something new.”

In response to the feedback received during the meeting, a students versus parents and guardians basketball game was held, Dec. 12, 2017.

On Feb. 15, Feb. 22 and March 1, anti-bullying workshops addressing fear, drama, popularity, acting our of jealous, attention, rumors and cyber bullying were held in the school’s library.

School Counselor Inky Vicenti also asked teachers to identify students with severe bullying, anger, sadness, self-esteem and motivation issues to her for small group counseling sessions.

Private family sessions with teachers, administrators, parents, guardians and students were also held through out the school year.

The schools’ response to bullying has not been swift or effective enough for some parents.

According to a May 31 Rio Grande SUN article, some parents have pulled their children out of the Dulce Independent School District and enrolled them into schools in Pagosa Springs, Colo. because of bullying and low academic standards at the schools. 

Other documents

While a reasonable search for bullying-related documents was conducted by the District, it is possible some were not included in the response to the Rio Grande SUN’s records request.

Berenberg wrote the District does not store all documents about bullying in a single location and sent what they were able to find. Additional documents may be found in a manual search.

“If you want the District to conduct that search, please contact me so I can get you an estimate of the time and costs involved,” he wrote.

The Act does not allow public entities to charge for time expended searching for documents.