<p>I agree with the previous two posters. This kind of behavior can be found anywhere there are young people. I am a teacher myself and I live near a huge city with hundreds of middle and high schools. This kind of thing happens in our local private day schools and the wealthy public districts. However, the less-wealthy local districts have similar, if not worse, problems with bullying…it just manifests differently. </p>
<p>How a school handles the situation should be the point of discussion.</p>
<p>I also just dropped a daughter at Exeter and I was quite confident that the school will NOT tolerate bullying of any kind. As far as academic achievement vs. human values…I feel that Exeter is doing an commendable job to foster and balance both. Much more so than our local schools are able to. However, it is my job as a parent to reinforce the values that we have been teaching our daughter since birth. </p>
<p>If kids behave in an entitled, arrogant, and cruel manner then we should not look to blame any one school…rather, there are some parents at fault somewhere (or the kid is a sociopath). And they probably wont last long at any respectable private school. </p>
<p>I worry much more for the kids in public schools who are either bullies themselves or are the victims of bullying because public schools have limited power to truly punish the offenders, or to protect the victims.</p>