Granada Preparatory School

I am filing a formal complaint against Granada Preparatory School located in Granada Hills, California, USA, due to persistent bullying by its students and physical assault on a 4 year old student by the staff while in the custody of the school.

The bullying against my child, age 4 years old, started in November 2021 by another child within his Junior Kindergarten class and continued all the way until end of school year. Both my husband and I have had numerous in person meetings with his teachers, principles, and the head of school regarding the repeated bullying with no objective focused corrective actions taken or implemented after every incident was raised directly with the school.

Despite repeated conversations, the school did not make any changes to further prevent the daily victimization against my son by the bully. GPS continued to allow the repeated bullying without any mediation or structural changes to protect my son.

In addition, Carol Shibel, head of school, and Mary Gendler, preschool director, both physically abused and assaulted my 4 year old child to the point where he had significant bruising and pain on his upper arm and his shoulders (see photos). We have already filed a police report. However, instead of holding the teacher and the school accountable for her physical assault and battery against my child, they blamed my son for being an over active 4 year old child. No amount of over-activity from a kid should ever lead to restraining a child to the point of leaving significant bruises and pain and trauma.

They catered to the family of the bully because the family is an active part in the affiliated church which is on the same campus as this IB school. This, that child was never help to the same code of conduct that other children should be held to.

This school does not follow its own code of conduct nor the principles of the International Baccalaureate World Schools.

Granada Preparatory School failed to INITIATE and INVITE concerned persons (e.g., bullies, victims, and parents/guardians of both the bullies and the victims) to help plan and implement activities to mitigate further bullying including instructing all school staff to provide immediate intervention and proper supervision to prevent bullying incidents.

Furthermore, Granada Preparatory School ADMINISTRATORS failed to act in accordance with the school's own policy and code of conduct against bullying. They repeatedly failed to initiate the following practical actions that should have supported their no-bullying policy. Those actions should have included scheduling active playground supervision and to make sure students are properly monitored in class, hallways, restrooms, the cafeteria, and areas identified in the school survey as "hot spots" for bullying.

Our concerns were egregiously dismissed as "boys will be boys'. However, how is another child hitting my son on the head with a hard plastic toy shovel, or pushing him to the ground, or throwing sand in his face, and eyes acceptable? Where was the supervision? Where is the accountability? This school has a zero tolerance policy for bullying and yet this child was allowed to continue bullying and victimizing my child persistently over 6 months without any disciplinary actions or corrective measures taken.

Ultimately, this school has flagrantly demonstrated a complete lack of professionalism and has shown that it does not follow the IB core tenets of developing caring and culturally aware children to become active participants in their own learning. In addition, the school protects the very staff that physically harm and assault children by keeping them employed and in charge of students.