Local mom says her son was punched and called racial slur at school

Ridley Park, Pa. (WTXF) - A frustrated mom says her 6th grader was punched by a fellow student and then called a vile racial slur. According to the mom, the school has given her few answers as to what's to be done about the alleged attacker.

Sitting in her attorney's Center City office several days later, Liante Robinson is still wiping away tears.

"Heartbreaking," she says. Robinson's 11-year-old son Nivre is a brand new 6th grader at Ridley Middle School. On Monday, she says her son got into an argument with a fellow student while passing between classes. Robinson says the other boy-- who is white-- punched her son, scratching his eye.

"As they were going inside the classroom, the student then said to my son. 'That's why you are a n-----.' Said that to my son," the mom said.

Liante says Nivre was "pretty much shocked. Just couldn't believe it."

Nivre described the incident in a report school officials asked him to provide. A day later, Robinson says her son reported another incident also detailed by Nivre in writing in which a different white student questioned where he'd been born. Nivre writes that he told the boy to get away from him.

As Liante describes it, "The young man then goes and sits at another table and speaks to another student and says, 'You know I could kill him, right?'"

Liante says she spent the next several days calling, emailing and visiting school officials, trying to find out what was being done to address the situation.

She says she learned little, except for this update from the school's Dean of Students: the boy from the Monday incident had been punished.

"He just kept saying to me that it's a 3-day suspension for physical contact. That's it. If he would not have physically assaulted my child, he would not have been suspended."

Liante says there was no indication that there would be any punishment for the use of a racial slur.

Shaken by the events, Nivre stayed home from school Wednesday. He wants to stay at Ridley Middle School, but mom is not so sure.

"You are not insuring me that you can keep my son safe," she says of the school. "You're not giving me answers. You're not doing anything."

Robinson's attorney is not threatening a lawsuit, but says he is monitoring the situation.

"What we're saying is that there has to be some kind of procedure in place to safeguard these kids that are in their care during the school day," says Donte Mills. "We don't have the sense that that happened at all."

In a written statement, the superintendent of the Ridley School District says they do not comment on specific students, but in an incident of this kind, the alleged attacker would be suspended, and there would be a mandatory parent re-entry conference and follow up counseling for the attacker, along with counseling for the student on the receiving end of the attack.

Liante Robinson tells FOX 29 she was not made aware of any of those actions, though she says the middle school assistant principal did speak with Nivre Friday morning.