update 12/13 5:50 p.m. – Poolville ISD tells CBS 11 they have looked into the incident and have taken appropriate disciplinary action.
POOLVILLE (CBSDFW.COM) – The family of a 5-year-old boy who says a child at least twice his age punched him in the face wants district officials to ban the boy’s attacker from riding the bus with him.
Last Wednesday, Brent Ross, 5, said a sixth grader punched him in the face on the school bus.
“He knocked me out,” the Poolville Elementary School student said. “He knocked me out.”
Brent’s 7-year-old brother tried to stop the attack, but he couldn’t.
“He was playing with the boy and the boy got mad and turned around and hit him in the face,” said Joshua Ross, the kindergartner’s father. “He tried to go under the seat to hide from the boy and the boy kept attacking him.”
Photos taken by Brent’s grandmother show his bloodied nose soaking through crumpled tissue paper. She said her grandson was bleeding from the attack “for several days.”
Poolville ISD told the family that the bus has cameras, but they couldn’t look at the video for privacy reasons. The family wants the attacker banned from the riding the bus. They also wonder why older and younger students don’t have separate assigned seats.
“Our kids are going to ride the bus and we expect the Poolville school to protect them,” said Brent’s grandmother Tresa Ross.
The family said they do not know why the older student lashed out. Brent, however, is now anxious about riding the bus. He said he wonders if the bigger boy will hurt him again.
The Ross family said they’ve been told the district is looking into what happened. The district superintendent did not return a number of messages requesting comment.
