Chatari’s Courage

Chatari Jones, a 12-year-old girl with cerebral palsy whose father made national headlines when he boarded a Florida school bus to defend her against bullying, spoke out publicly in the Orlando Sentinel to help other students who are being bullied. "Thank you so much for bullying me, because it taught me a lesson about disabled kids," Chatari said in the article. "We are disabled for a reason." Her father, James Jones, said Chatari’s ordeal at the hands of bullies who spit in her hair and called her names, often sparked by her disability, has given her the courage to speak nationally and publicly about the taunts children under similar circumstances suffer at school.

"We are trying to turn around what happened on that bus," her father said. "My daughter can now stand up for others."