Read this disturbing article in the NYT today (love the last line).
I hope they sue the school board and send them and the boys who bullied him to the cleaners. I really do believe that this kind of bullying takes place because administrators allow it to -- many of the male admins think it is a "normal" part of growing up as a boy -- and many of them may have been bullies themselves. Kind of the "it'll toughen you up, kid" kind of mentality. Burns me up.
I don't know how other school systems do it, but when I taught in Florida, they had a resource officer at every school, and I know that any major assaults like what was written about in this article would involve that resource officer, without a doubt. There's no "calling the police" -- the police are there. And the resource officer would build a relationship with the students, so the students wouldn't only think of the police as someone you call when you're in trouble or someone who handcuffs you when you get arrested.
Any boy who without provocation hits another so hard that it draws blood or makes the victim unconscious should be arrested for assault. There should be no tolerance of violence or intimidation in the schools. Period. And if the parents know that they boys are bullying and assaulting others, then they should be held accountable too.