Davis County dad: school bullies forced son to eat food thrown on floor, wiped on shoes

LAYTON, Utah (KUTV) — A Davis County father is calling out what he said is the latest case of bullying against his nine year old son—kids who threw food on the cafeteria floor, and even rubbed it on the sole of a shoe—before giving it to him to eat.

“It was very hard to watch that,” said Bill Jacobi, father of six, including a 3rd grader named Will. “It was hard to see the joy in some of these boys’ faces as they were doing it.”

Bill said he saw video from the cafeteria of Sand Springs Elementary School in Layton, after the incident.

“What did our son do to deserve this?” Bill asked. “And the answer is, he didn’t do anything.“

He agreed to speak to us Wednesday, saying his aim was to educate.

“We’ve been reached out to by people in the city, the school district, the state, and all over the country with similar stories,” he said.

The Davis District out out a statement late Wednesday afternoon, saying the district and the school “view the situation and the circumstances surrounding it as very serious and troubling.”

The statement did not delve into specifics, but said the district investigated for hours and imposed “significant consequences for the offending parties.”

Jacobi said there were suspensions of several days for some kids and “no contact orders” for a couple of others. He thought the penalties could have been stronger.

He also said the principal and vice principal at the school are “kind,” but that he was not notified by the district until roughly eight hours after the incident happened.

The district said it is “working tirelessly to eliminate all forms of bullying, harassment and discrimination through ‘See something, say something,’ and ‘No more, not here’ campaigns.

Recently, a young African American girl in the Davis District took her own life after her family said she was bullied at school, and the Justice Department and district entered into a settlement over racial harassment in schools.