It’s unfortunately harder to prove bullying than the resulting backlash in most cases.
Because of how litigious American society is especially, schools are often held to exceedingly high standards when it comes to burden of proof. So we have to tiptoe around bullying unless it’s something where we can literally print the text messages/tweet whatever.
And even then, it’s often a matter of getting the child to report to the proper people (their parents might not tell the school, for instance) in order for the systems we have in place to protect them to even start to work.
Edit: Am a public school teacher.
I’d say there’s a chance the professional is overwhelmed by the number of kids and it is easier to punish the act of violence (that standing up usually involves) than to investigate and educate properly
Any parent with more than one kid and any kids with siblings knows the answer to this: the second kid is always the one that gets caught. Teachers can’t do anything without proof and they did not see the original incident but it’s much easier to see the retaliation
Truth is it comes down to restorative justice. Kids no longer have any respect for authority figures. When there is not consequence for their actions they do whatever they want to do. Fact is in the classroom we spend 60-70 percent of our time dealing with behaviors that has been handed down to us to contain due to the constraints of this stupid policy put into place by the Obama administration in order to prevent kids of color from being suspended and expelled. Unfortunately restorative justice does not work because the bullies are able to get away with whatever they want to do and the admin and teachers have their hands tied due to the more kids being suspended and expelled the more money they lose in funding. I’m not implying that bullies are only POC because bullies have no color lines but the policies affect everyone. It was meant for good but it caused more harm. Instead of us as teacher doing our job and instructing we are dealing with kids who suffer from a false sense of entitlement. The only way now kids now how to express themselves is with bullets.
Cost, time, The school’s job is to make sure problems like these dont blow up and that as little money is used on it as possible.