ROME — Bullying was a hot topic once again during public commentary at the Monday meeting of the Rome City School District Board of Education — this time concerning a recently-withdrawn student at Strough Middle School.

In an impassioned personal testimonial, mother Andrea Barnhill stood before the board and the audience to report the bullying had gotten so bad for her son that they have decided to pay the additional tuition cost to send him to the Westmoreland school district.

Barnhill said the family moved to the Rome district in September, “hoping for a better experience.” Since then, they have taking their complaints through every level of administration leading to the school board without feeling they received satisfactory answers, Barnhill said.

“Nothing has changed,” she told the board.

Her son, who is of a mixed race ethnicity, has lost 30 pounds and she has had to sit by his bed at night because he doesn’t want to return to school, Barnhill recalled. When the bullying was initially reported, she was encouraged for her son to join the football team and make some friends.

He did, only to have teammates tell him — in considerably graphic terms — how they wanted to take inappropriate advances toward his older sister, she said. Insults against him have included the n-word and the r-word, Barnhill reported.

Meanwhile, his older sister is leaving Rome Free Academy for homeschooling, their mom said. A younger sister at Denti Elementary School has not said she has experienced any problems, Barnhill added.

None of them will be in the district much longer.

“We will be putting our house on the market,” Barnhill promised.

Jacqueline Nelson, president at NAACP Rome New York, was in the audience and said she felt compelled to address the board and the audience after Barnhill’s presentation.

“This is very upsetting,” Nelson admitted. “We are tired of having to come to this school district because people don’t think they are being heard.”

Parents have said they do not feel respected and even feel the district turns around their complaints to try to prove those complaints are unfounded, she said.

There is a memorandum of understanding between the NAACP and the district, Nelson noted, and the NAACP wants to help make the district better so residents will want to stay. She said they started a focus group with the local police a couple of years ago and now plan to do the same thing in the school district.

“This is the second family I’ve known that has moved out of the district,” Nelson said. “Who is going to want to move to Rome?”