Quote:
Originally Posted by MARS_James
Now the other side was several different complaints from different cheerleaders brought to a competition by a team. After talking to him multiple times the decision was made to take the student out of costume for the last day of competition, and have no mascot. Surprisingly we continued to get complaints from the cheerleaders about our mascot the next day, after getting 5 of these (one of which when the student in question was standing next to me) we talked to the team who brought them and found out that the cheerleaders has been lying the whole time, so the student was allowed back into the costume and was given the most sincerest apology of my life. Had I believed the student who I trusted or talked with the team earlier the student would not have been unfairly punished.
So my advice to all teams who deal with mascots is make sure the student can be trusted, when receiving complaints take them seriously, but be sure that you get the mascots side of the story and talk to the team the person making the complaint is from to see if an event actually occurred.
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Totally see your point here. Some people might make an untrue claim. But what if they were honestly reporting that the kid creeped them out or wouldn't leave them alone?
Take your mascot's story with a grain of salt - if any human being (marking them as girls or cheerleaders seems irrelevant and kind of unfair) comes up saying your mascot groped them, do you think the kid would own up to it?
Quite honestly, all it takes is a mascot 'hands to yourself' rule. Wave, put your hands in the air, whatever - but as mentors, it's our responsibility to tell our students to behave appropriately, and touching anyone else (or just being too close for comfort) should never be OK.
Again, anyone who feels like they're being harassed by a mascot (or any other human being at the event) should report it to a trusted mentor or volunteer. Harassment is harassment, and the fact that this isn't one unique story shows that we need to put a stop to this.