OK, I am officially a cranky old fart.
I have a 15 year old in high school. He's a good kid, quiet, stays out of trouble. Attends high school math class, needs one of those expensive TI graphing calculators. Don't ask me what for, they just need them. (sigh). So, we buy one and off he goes. Now, I'm lucky, it causes no financial hardship, but there are those who cannot afford to shell out $100 for a calculator and the school rents calculators as needed. Turns out my son has a classmate in that situation. This kid probably is not financially stressed, (small community, I know who his folks are), he is quite popular and he has a history of harrassing my kid. One day, my kid's calculator disappears and the other kid now has two, the rental calculator and one he "found". We try to do the right thing. I coach my son to approach the kid and teachers, explain the situation and recover the calculator. Weeks go by and I ask him how it turned out. He was told that since there were no personal identifying marks, he could not claim the calculator. Teacher wants nothing to do with this. I call up the principal, explain that the teacher refused to help resolve the situation and I would now turn the matter over to the police. My son had his calculator back within hours.
Schools supposedly have an anti-bullying policy, zero tolerence, yada yada yada. They know what is going on, yet they have no backbone to deal with it. They actually encourage these little sociopaths and and turn them loose on the world. As an employer, I then have to deal with them and their entitled attitudes and I'm sick of it! I realize there is nothing new here, It's happened before and it will happen again, but at least in my day, this could be resolved without resorting to threatening to call the police.
There, now I feel better.