Jason
I agree that telling a teacher won't stop the bully from being a bully. Unfortunately, things in American schools have changed radically in the last few years.
Unless a student can present a very strong chain of evidence that he tried to avoid a fight, did not start it and was being harassed for sometime before it broke out, he will get into at least as much trouble as the asshole who starts it.
More, probably, if he is gay and the jerk who is bullying him belongs to a protected class.
Back in the day, these things were handled by the school personnel themselves. Today, we have a situation where six year olds are hauled away in handcuffs, the police are called and mandatory criminal charges filed when first grade boys say something to a girl which, when said by an adult might, possibly, perhaps, under certain circumstances be seen as sexually discriminatory...
Unless you teach or have just graduated, you have no idea how things have changed the last several years.
I'm preparing to return to the US and am working to renew my American teaching license. The political correctness bullshit and the discrimination against gay students leaves me speechless.
And we all know how unusual that is.
Nope, talking to a teacher or a counselor won't do diddly squat about the jerk, but it might well keep Fred out of real trouble and a juvenile 'justice' record.
On a side note, we had a problem with young Turkish men (a group with many 'issues', including a hatred for gays). In groups of five or six, they were ganging up on single, obviously gay men in the gay triangle in Munich. Since the police weren't reacting fast enough and the politically correct Greens running the city's responsible departments felt we 'gays' were not showing understanding for their cultural differences, several folks here banded together and, for a few months made a point of showing these young Turks the special care and attention they obviously needed. Took awhile, but today, over twenty years later, peace still reigns around Sendlinger Tor. Wish we could get a few of those gals together and send them over to help Fred...