LOUISVILLE (WHAS11) -- A Louisville 6th grader said she no longer feels safe at school. The girl's family is now filing charges against a guidance counselor at Noe Middle School as well as two students who she said verbally and physically bullied her, even going so far as to break her nose.
"I'm just really scared every day, like am I going to get beat up again?" Kendall Marshall, a 6th grader at Noe Middle School, said.
"This was a brutal attack, assault in the hallway, her nose was fractured, deviated septum, fractured tooth, black eye, contusions, she spent several hours in the emergency room," Amy Marshall, Kendall Marshall's mother, said.
Marshall and her daughter said the attack involved a 6th grade boy. They said the bullying started out verbal with him calling her names and tormenting her because of her physical appearance.
Marshall said both her and her daughter brought the issue to staff members at the school and district level but nothing was done. Then, on Sept.8 they said the physical attack happened.
The school suspended the male student for six days but it did not end there. The Marshalls said the boy's sister, a 7th grader, then got involved.
"She said, 'well I know it's not right for a boy to hit a girl but I'm not a boy and me and my family are not scared to kill,'" Kendall Marshall said.
Her mother says the situation is hard to deal with.
"I feel like I'm sending her into the lion's den every day and it is hard when it's my job to protect her," Amy Marshall said.
Amy Marshall said her daughter spent two months eating lunch in the guidance counselor's office until this week, when they say she was turned away.
"They closed the door and shooed me away and said go," Kendall Marshall said.
"This isn't something that you take lightly. If this happened outside of school, that person would be in jail, you know, these kids need to answer and the teachers, the administrators need to stop being scared to punish these kids the way that they should be," Amy Marshall said.
Amy Marshall said she thought about pulling her daughter out of Noe Middle School but said she worked hard to get there and that she wants to go to Manual High School and Noe Middle is known as a feeder school.
The Marshalls are now taking legal action. They lawsuit was filed against the guidance counselor and the two students they call bullies. They are pushing for a restraining order and hope the students are removed from the school.
"She deserves to go to school every day and feel safe and the kids that aren't going to comply, I think they need to go," Amy Marshall said.
A spokesperson for Jefferson County Public Schools said the district cannot comment on a pending lawsuit but said it takes bullying very seriously and have numerous programs in place, at all schools, to help prevent bullying and deal with it when it occurs.
The Marshalls said they will also be asking for restitution later in the case.
