From target to team member
How a bullied teen found salvation working at the Wellington Diner
Jeff Frost first encountered Winston Karam last summer, as a voice on Frost’s car radio talking about being bullied, harassed and intimidated, about being taunted with a racial slur by his Grade 7 classmates. Frost listened as Winston was interviewed about how he and his mother took the school board to court — and won.
“I connected with him right away,” said Frost.
“I felt I knew Winston’s story. I know what it feels like to be bullied. I turned to my wife and said, ‘What can I do?’ “
The answer came quickly to Frost, owner of the busy restaurant The Wellington Diner.
“I thought, I have a team here. If he can accomplish what we do here on a Sunday that’ll make Winston feel better. Being on a team — six hours of hustle and fighting — it gives you self worth.”
And so he acted. Frost coldcalled the Karams and invited Winston, his mother, Vania, and Vania’s mother, with whom they lived, for lunch. Frost asked Winston to come work at the diner.
“I got all three generations in here. I said to Winston, ‘Thanks for speaking up.’ It takes a lot to tell that story. I wanted to say thanks, that I was proud of him and that I looked up to him.”
On the day Vania, Winston and Frost met the Citizen at The Wellington Diner, Winston had just come from the orthodontist after having his braces removed. Now 17, he talks easily as he digs into a hamburger and fries about the bullying he endured and the subsequent court battles.
Winston was just 11 when the bullying started in the fall of 2011. He was a new student at Broadview Public School, skinny and tall, towering over his classmates. His tormentors were two boys he thought were his friends. They started with name-calling, progressively getting more physical and more aggressive.
“At first I didn’t see it for what it was. But as it went on, it got more serious,” Winston said. “They started calling me worse names. More physical contact. They started following me home.”
Winston turned to the principal for help, but got little response.
“He said, ‘If you realize they’re not your friends, you should just make new friends.’ ”
But making new friends wasn’t easy for an outsider at a new school. The bullying continued, culminating in April 2012 when one of the kids pinched him in class and called him a n----r. Winston swore at his tormentor, then broke down, starting to shake and hyperventilate.
That was the last straw for Vania, who had been frustrated by the school’s lack of action.
“The school called me at work and I told them to call an ambulance,” she said. “They refused. They absolutely refused to call an ambulance.
“He was called the N-word in class and he had the courage to fight back. He said f--k off, which isn’t great, but at least he did. And they sent HIM to the office. They gave Winston a detention but not the kid who used the N-word. That’s a terrible message!”
In Winston’s report card that spring, the school wrote “peer relationships are inappropriate and need to be monitored and corrected.
“More positive dialogue and interaction between adults and Winston is needed.”
“It was like they were blaming him,” Vania said. “Add up all those things and it was like, how could I not (go to court)?”
Vania decided to sue the Ottawa Carleton District School Board in small claims court, though she worried how Winston would handle the stress.
“At that time, Winston was really broken. He was a broken kid. And they still weren’t hearing it. Not the teachers. Not the school board.”
Far from being intimidated in court, Winston flourished, she said.
“After he was on the stand, he was so empowered. Just having the judge listen to him, to be able to speak without being dismissed. He just seemed so happy.”
The Karams won their case, but the school board appealed and a new trial was ordered. Last May, the family won that case, too, with Justice Rohan Bansie agreeing the board had “breached the standard of care” it owed Winston. The case, which drew international attention, is believed to be the first in North America in which a school board was found accountable for a student being bullied.
The damage award was small — $3,800 — the cost of Winston’s home schooling after the ordeal and a self-defence course Vania enrolled him in to improve his selfconfidence.
That amount pales beside the family’s $54,000 in legal expenses, but Vania Karam said she has no regrets.
“It was worth it for Winston . ... It really validated him after all these years.”
In a statement, the school board said it’s made changes since Winston was bullied in the 2011-12 school year.
“This particular issue took place
five years ago. Many changes to practice have been put in place since then. This includes professional development for staff, learning opportunities for students and the introduction of anti-bullying programs,” the statement reads, in part.
“At every level of our organization, our staff is committed to creating safe and caring learning environments, and to working with parents and families to address individual issues when they arise.”
Back at The Wellington Diner, Winston works his Sunday shifts with a newfound zeal, Frost said.
At first, Frost kept a hands-off approach, letting staff direct Winston as he learned the ropes. Gradually, Frost became more involved, sharing advice and telling Winston how he’d been bullied himself after his parents split up and Frost lived for a time with his father in Florida. Like Winston, Frost was tall and thin, a mild-mannered Canadian outsider who was a target for school thugs.
“I’m still bullied,” Frost said. “If you put yourself out there, people come after you. Whether it’s trolls on the Internet or people who think they know who you are and what you’re about. It never stops.
“Sometimes after the shift, I’ll sit down with Winston and talk to him, let him know that it’s never going to stop. You just have to learn how to cope with it.”
The diner work is the first real job for Winston. He said he likes the busyness of the Sunday shift. He likes working on his feet and hustling.
“When I look at Winston, he’s starting to have instincts,” Frost said.
“He sees things before they happen. He’s running up and down the stairs. He didn’t use to do that. We see that great smile more and more. He’s coming out of his shell.
“Hopefully, in the future when he goes on and gets another job and meets someone, he’s going to shake that hand and look them in the eye and have that confidence to deliver that handshake. This is a young man with a giant heart and he’s evolving in front of our eyes. He’s amazing.”