A Winnipeg mother whose nine-year-old daughter got a sexually explicit email from boys at her school is accusing the school of downplaying, hiding and mishandling the situation.A Winnipeg woman says in March, she got a phone call from her daughter's principal, saying the girl had recently received a 'sexually explicit' email from two Grade 4 boys.
The principal said she had investigated the matter and had spoken with the boys' parents, and the principal left the impression everything was fine, the mother said. After pressing school officials multiple times to see the email, the mother said the principal finally produced a copy — with the boys' names redacted.
"You need to train your administrators so that if something like this happens again, and it will, then what are they going to do?" the mother said. "What I have found is that schools don't really know how to prevent it … and if they do see it, or if they hear about it, they do not know how to intervene," she said.Although less common in primary schools than in high schools, sexual harassment among elementary-school-aged children still happens, said Strauss, who has also served as an expert witness in sexual harassment court cases.