An ethnically motivated bullying campaign perpetrated by students at a Kawasaki elementary school in the 2000 school year may result in reprimands for the principal and senior staff working there at the time.
A girl who was bullied at Minami-Suge Elementary School in Tama Ward has since been suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, the municipal board of education said Wednesday.
The girl has a Chinese father and Japanese mother.
The board has apologized to her parents, concluding the school mishandled the case and the bullying was "based on ethnic discrimination."
The board is also planning to compensate the girl's parents for the medical costs of treating her condition.
According to the board of education, around April 2000, students in the girl's third-grade class began bullying her.
They verbally abused her and struck her head and legs, the board said.
They purposely ignored her, placed her desk apart from other desks during lunch time and did not serve her lunch, officials said. Despite this behavior, the efforts made by the girl's teacher to stop the bullying were inconsistent, the board said.
It said that, at the behest of the girl's father, a parents' meeting was held about the bullying in December 2000.
During the meeting, a family member of one of the bullies said the girl was partly responsible for bringing the bullying upon herself. The vice principal agreed with this assertion, according to the board.
The girl stopped attending the school in December 2000 and transferred to a school in Yokohama in March 2001.