Bullied ‘Canadian’ Teen Forced To Drop Out, Family Says

A bullied “Canadian” teen was forced to drop out of school as a result of harassment from teachers who poked cruel fun at his heritage. That’s the accusation being made this week by the family of 15-year-old Noah Kilpatrick, who recently dropped out of the 9th grade at Faith Fellowship Christian School in Watertown, New York.

He will be finishing up the last semester of 9th grade at home.

What’s really whackadoo is that the bullied “Canadian” teen isn’t a Canadian at all. Yes, he was born in Ottawa, but he is a naturalized American citizen who has lived in the United States for ten years.

The National Post noted that Watertown isn’t known for its Canada-bashing. Indeed, a Canadian flag reportedly hangs in one of Faith Fellowship’s windows.

Yet the family said that Noah was endlessly, relentlessly bullied — even by the high school principal Theodore Curinga.

The teen told a local Fox affiliate news station:

“He would make fun of the way I dressed and he’d say, ‘Oh, you’re wearing Canadian colors,’ and I’d be like, ‘Yeah, I am. Thanks, Mr. Curinga.’ He’d say, ‘That wasn’t a compliment.'”

A math teacher also reportedly participated in making fun of Noah for being Canadian.

His mother Tina Kilpatrick pulled him from school after she couldn’t get any satisfaction from the school’s staff. “In class, Noah would make a comment and the [teacher] would say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s because you’re Canadian,'” she said.

The school had no public comment, so we’re admittedly getting only one side of the story. Still…

I hate to say that I had teachers like that, who would find some perfectly inoffensive reason to pile on a kid and keep riding him until he cracked.

But I did.

Maybe a lot of us did.

If so-called grown-ups were really engaging in this kind of behavior, they should be ashamed of themselves.

What’s your take on the bullied “Canadian” teen?

[Canada flag photo by Makaristos via Wikimedia Commons]