A Mother Defends Her Daughter From Bullies And Is Charged With Assault

After feeling the school had failed her, this mom confronted her daughter’s bully and is now facing assault charges.

Imagine your child is being bullied at school. You take the proper steps: contact their teacher, the counselor and maybe even the principal. You endure phone calls, meetings and continue to watch your child come home sad and frustrated day after day because despite all of that effort, things aren’t getting any better. What next?

A mom in Iowa felt she had to take action after other measures failed and is now facing assault charges after trying to defend her daughter from persistent bullies at her middle school.

According to WhoTV, Alisha Morton, mother of 14-year-old daughter Morgan Sellers, felt she had no choice but to go to school with her daughter and face down the bullies who have been bullying her since the beginning of the school year. Morton claims she had already gone to the school and even the superintendent, to no avail.

The situation had grown quite dire and Morton had heard enough. “For my child to come home and tell me that she wants to die because this child is still doing something that I’ve confronted this school and this superintendent about — it kills me inside.”

On January 11th, Morton went to the school and confronted the 8th grade boy Sellers told her mother was the one bothering her the most. Another student, a 9th grade girl, got involved in the altercation. Morton says the girl threatened her so she put her arm out to block her and that’s when the student allegedly tried to hit her. Morgan says she grabbed the girl’s hands to protect her mother when Morton “shoved” the student, according to the assault complaint on file.

A statement from the school regarding the incident didn’t specifically discuss the situation, as privacy rules preclude them from disclosing student disciplinary action. They did suggest that Morton hadn’t filed any reports regarding her daughter’s bullying issues by wrapping up their statement with, “There are currently no Ankeny Community School District Harassment/Bullying Complaint forms filed in the district, or open reports in the phone/web-based incident reporting tool “TIPS”.”

It’s easy to write off Morton and say she was was being unreasonable. It’s easy to assume she’s lying by saying she told the school and they didn’t take action. But if you’ve had this happen to your child, you know how helpless you feel when you tell the school and they do nothing. And sometimes, that is exactly how it goes. I know because it happened to me.

My daughter had an awful bullying situation at the start of this school year. Like Morton, I too went through the channels of teacher/counselor/principal and though it was eventually resolved, it took a long time before I felt the school was taking me seriously. And before the girls tormenting her finally left my daughter alone. In those weeks where I had to send her to school knowing she was scared and upset, I definitely contemplated showing up and talking to the kids myself. When you see your child in pain, you want it to stop. Period.

The situation I went through with my daughter taught me that even if you’re incredibly persistent and involved, it can still take awhile to resolve a bullying issue at school. If Morton’s daughter was telling her she wanted to die because these kids were being so terrible, can we really blame her for showing up in person to try to get a handle on it? It might not have been the best way to go about it, but it is understandable for her to want to make this go away. For her daughter’s sake.

Of course, there could be more to this story than we’re hearing as the school can’t comment on the way it’s disciplining the kids involved, but from what we know, it sounds like Morton had her reasons for showing up to defend her daughter. When you feel like no one else is going to help, what’s left for a parent to do? Hopefully, things will be resolved for Morgan so she can return to school and focus on learning without the distraction of being bullied.