"I keep hearing about how administrators and teachers and everybody to blame, but I'm not hearing a word about parents in the community." There was applause from the back of the room.
She spoke about her experience when her son was bullied, and administrators did their best, but when she approached parents about their children's behavior, she was immediately ostracized. "I was shunned from their circle, the PTO, everything else, and I felt that message loud and clear," she said. She spoke of a woman she had heard of who was happy that her daughter made the slut list, because it ensured that she was popular, and other parents complaining about having to shop for camouflage one weekend, the clothes certain freshman girls had been instructed to wear. "Where are your brains?" Ms. Pasternak asked.
"I'm really speaking to you guys as a community, yes you should put together a task force," she said. "But why do let these people dominate our community? We shouldn't. We should say you're wrong, your kids are not the popular ones and you are definitely not popular." (People laughed at that.)
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