Different entrances, times for Childs/Barratt pupils

There will be separate entrances and staggered start and dismissal times when pupils from the G.W. Childs School begin to share the Barratt Middle School with about 90 Barratt eighth-graders in September, district officials said.

For Childs parents with stories of their children being bullied and attacked by Barratt pupils, they hope that's enough to keep their kids safe.

After the Daily News reported that Childs parents were worried about the plan to share the building, more stories emerged about problems inside the school, and a Barratt parent came forward with a new horror story.

Nakia Ford, the mother of a Barratt eighth-grade girl, said that her daughter was viciously attacked in the school's lunchroom on April 13 by another Barratt eighth-grade female.

"There are bullies in that school," Ford said. "Another Barratt student stomped on my daughter's face. I had to take her to the emergency room."

Ford said that she and her daughter - whose face and eye were badly swollen on one side - are scheduled to appear today in Family Court, where the alleged assailant faces criminal charges.

The Daily News is withholding the name of the defendant because she is a juvenile.

Ford said that her daughter is a good student who has been accepted into one of the district's academic special-admission high schools next year.

While Ford said that the girl who assaulted her daughter first began bullying her during the seventh grade, Barratt principal Roy McKinney said through a district spokesman that school officials knew of only two incidents between the girls this school year.

"At the time of the first incident, a parent conference was called to resolve the differences," district spokesman Fernando Gallard said. "Then this incident occurred on April 13."

But Ford said that she asked to meet with the principal in October because the girl allegedly tripped her daughter in a hallway. Her daughter fell and injured herself in the eye with her own fingernail, Ford said.

Ford said that the teasing that started in seventh grade escalated to "spiteful things like tripping my daughter or slapping her in the back of the head" after the two students began the eighth grade.

Despite the bullying, Ford said she thought that the Barratt teachers were excellent and had helped her child succeed academically.

Only a few days after the October meeting, Ford said she called the school district's anti-bullying hot line seeking help, but nothing was resolved. "The girl's grandmother was supposed to come to a meeting, but she didn't show up," Ford said.

Gallard said that the school called police after the girl assaulted Ford's daughter last month and recommended that the attacker be removed from the school.

Ford disputes that account and said that she had to call police to the school.

"I don't know why the school didn't call the police," she said. "My daughter didn't feel protected at that school since she [the defendant] started bothering her" in seventh grade.

Ford contacted the Daily News after a story last week about Childs parents' opposition to the plan to close Childs, at 17th and Tasker streets, next month. The 116-year-old building has severe roof problems and other structural issues.

The district plans to relocate about 600 Childs pupils and their teachers and administrators to the first three floors of the Barratt school, four blocks away at 16th and Wharton streets, in September.

Because the district is eliminating many middle schools, only 90 Barratt eighth-graders will remain in their own school on the fourth floor, Gallard said.

The district has been taking parents and children from the Childs school on tours of Barratt so that they can see how the district will keep the two student bodies separated, Gallard said. The next parent tour is set for tomorrow.