One of them ripped a necklace off of me, then spat on me.

I should add that this was after the day before when they had caught me walking home and pushed me into the local pond (during winter) and that the necklace was given to me by my great grandfather that had died very recently (and the bully knew that). In hindsight, I shouldn't have been wearing it.

So I punched him in the face, he reeled a little and his friends went to work on me before a teacher stepped in- as they were the other side of the play-ground and needed to close the distance.

Unfortunately all they'd seen was me hitting the bully.

So, expelled.

Got it, thanks for sharing.

Overly harsh consequences are only fair if detection of the responsible/initiating party is foolproof.

Ironically, overly harsh consequences are often imposed because detection is lacking. If you can't reliably detect infringing behaviour to impose a fair consequence, you have to ramp up the severity of the consequence imposed when you do detect an infringement in order to maintain deterrence.

Maybe the creep towards surveillance everywhere will help with this? Get a bit of AI in there and school bullying is solved.

A sarcastic suggestion.

Surveillance will come one way or another I think. When it does, the best we can do is ensure it is used for the benefit of all.

It's easy to imagine a school with cameras in every hall, and when it benefits those in power, the "tapes are pulled", but when it might help a pleb, it's too much of a hassle to pull the tapes.