Pine Bush family says teen endured year of bullying, violent attacks at school

A Pine Bush father says his 15-year-old son was thrown to the ground, punched and kicked at Pine Bush High School, the latest in a series of alleged attacks that Corey Peters says has stretched back more than a year.

Peters said the most recent incident happened last week. The teenager’s supporting deposition filed with state police says another student threw him to the ground and punched him in the head, leaving a cut that required treatment. Medical records from Garnet Health Medical Center show the boy was treated for a head injury and laceration, and Peters said the wound required staples.

Peters said the abuse began in middle school and escalated from there. He said he has video of an attack in a Crispell locker room last year, and that his son was strangled on a school bus in February 2026. Taken together, the allegations point to a pattern that goes beyond a single schoolyard fight and raise questions about how aggressively repeated bullying claims were handled across Pine Bush schools.

The Pine Bush Central School District said it cannot comment on specific students or incidents, but said it follows DASA regulations, district protocols and its code of conduct. The district also said it is paying for a private tutor for the rest of the school year, a step that effectively removes the teen from the classroom while the family says he is too afraid to return.

District safety materials say each school building has a designated Dignity Act Coordinator. Pine Bush High School lists Denise Tzouganatos as its DASA coordinator, and the district coordinator is Rachel Adelstein. The district also says all seven of its schools are designated No Place for Hate schools, part of a districtwide anti-bias and anti-bullying program created with the Anti-Defamation League.

The case lands at the center of New York’s Dignity for All Students Act, which was designed to protect students from discrimination, harassment and bullying on school property, on buses and at school functions. State guidance says schools must investigate and respond to allegations, and the New York State Comptroller has tied DASA compliance to broader school safety planning. State police said they were investigating the latest incident. For Orange County families watching Pine Bush closely, the question is not only what happened to one student, but whether the reporting system, the school response and the enforcement of those rules were enough to stop a cycle of violence that Peters says lasted far too long.