"One year ago, Chris and Kim Brancato saw what persistent bullying could do to a 12-year-old honor roll student as their son, then enrolled at Fluvanna Middle School, started dreading school and failing classes in which he had excelled.

The seventh-grader came home with bruised ribs. The short, slight youth started hiding behind cars to avoid the pack of bigger boys who would harass, intimidate and beat him between the school bus and the school door, they said.

“He was thrown in front of a moving school bus,” Chris Brancato said of his son, who weighed 64 pounds. “They used him as a medicine ball. They used him as a jump rope.”

Teachers who saw some of these activities “thought it was horseplay,” said the father, who is director of marketing at Health Data Services in Charlottesville.

The boy didn’t explain the bullying to his parents and suffered assault after assault on school grounds.

He suffered more than they had any idea and eventually tried to kill himself, the couple said. The ligature marks on his slight neck awoke his parents, both health care professionals, to the nature of his months-long torment.

After more than $30,000 worth of medical bills, suicide watches and emergency hospitalization, their son, now 13, is back on the honor roll at another school, the parents said.

They helped Fluvanna authorities successfully prosecute a bullying case that they believe brought a measure of justice.

The Brancatos also are fighting back against bullying in Virginia’s public schools and helping Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, craft and push a pair of bills that would require all school boards to have policies to prevent, prohibit and control bullying, protect teachers who report it and require character education classes to cover the problem.

Their son’s nightmare on school grounds and its effects on the youth will be brought before the House Education Committee next week, Bell said Monday.

“It prompted me to go ahead and do it this year rather than wait,” said Bell, who had been working on drafting anti-bullying legislation for a couple of years.

“His father contacted me” and volunteered with his wife to help research and testify for the legislation, Bell said.

“I think it’s a terrible shame” what happened to their son for so many months, the delegate said. “It just demonstrates that you can have good people in good positions and still terrible things can happen. I want to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

Bell’s legislation includes classroom instruction in character education to specify teaching about “the inappropriateness of bullying, intimidation and harassment of others,” and would require reporting of assaults and physical injuries to the parents of injured students with a copy of a concise description of the procedure for filing a juvenile court petition and the process for contacting local law enforcement.

Bell is gathering input from school superintendents and parents groups before he takes his pair of anti-bullying bills before a House education subcommittee perhaps as early as Monday, he said.

Bullying problems are much larger than many people realize, Bell said.

“Tens of thousands of kids don’t go to class on any given day because they are afraid of being bullied,” Bell said, quoting University of Virginia clinical psychologist Peter Sheras.

Brancato said he has seen other cases in the Fluvanna school system.

“I have no problem [testifying] because I don’t want this happening to another child,” Brancato said. “Something has got to change before one of these children dies. The environment breeds this because it is not dealt with.” " (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, January 18, 2005)

Contact Bob Gibson at (434) 978-7243 or bgibson@dailyprogress.com.