‘Don’t Give Me That Load of Crap’: Fox’s Banderas Slams School District Charging Mother $7K to Access Bullying Records
Fox News anchor Julie Banderas condemned school bullying in an interview with a Texas mother fighting for access to school records to examine how big of an issue bullying is in her district.
Banderas spoke Tuesday morning with Terrie Chumchal, who has been attempting to review public records pertaining to two years of severe, racially-charged abuse her son has faced from other students.
Chumchal’s efforts to look over bullying and grievance reports in the district from the last few years have been hindered, however, by school district lawyers telling her to cough up more than $7,000 in public records fees.
When Banderas welcomed Chumchal and attorney Warren Norred to the show, she began by offering her sympathy to Chumchal’s son.
“I’m so sorry, as a mother, you have had to endure this,” she said.
The Fox News anchor called the bullying against Chumchal’s son, who is of Korean-American heritage, “absolutely despicable,” before asking her to explain how the school could possibly bill her $7,000 for these records.
Both Chumcal and her attorney were at a loss to explain the school’s actions.
Banderas called it “the latest instance in a troubling nationwide trend of public schools trying to use public records and fees to keep parents in the dark.”
“A parent should never, ever be left in the dark,” she continued. “Not on bullying, not on education. We have the right to know what’s happening to our children when they are in your care.”
Banderas highlighted a letter from the school district lawyers which defended the fee on the grounds that it needed to redact confidential information.
Banderas was not buying that argument, saying “don’t give me that load of crap that you do not have records of every bully incident, considering the school district could be held liable if, God forbid, something happened to one of those kids. They are responsible for our children when they’re not under our roofs, so this sounds like a bunch of bull.”
Watch above via Fox News.
