School Bullies, what to do?

I'm thinking bullying started about the time Eve coerced Adam in to taking a bite of a bright red apple. Speculation aside and truly no laughing matter, my oldest child is being harassed by kids in her 5Th Grade class. Yes, my sweet intelligent, yet shy and a tad quirky 'tween has been subjected to behavior that Mom MD and I consider unacceptable.

Without going into too much detail, a girl has decided to make my daughter's educational experience miserable not only while in class, but at lunch, in line, and on the playground with continuous verbal abuse. Another boy approached her immediately after school and basically told her that he loathes her and she is a female dog...nice huh? Unacceptable.

I was bullied as a kid. Many of us were at some point between Kindergarten and high school graduation. I was an overweight kid. My tormentor was actually my age and a teammate on my Little League team. He lived on the next street over sometime between the 6Th and 8Th grades. I still remember the morning at the bus stop that he punched me in the face (I believe I was wearing my retainer) just because I wouldn't let his friend cut in line. I'm thinking that this was the same morning that he grabbed a cat by the tail and hurled it over a wall....nice huh?

The neighborhood kids were elated when he moved to Texas sometime before high school. I didn't hear of or from him until about 8 years ago when out of the blue I received an e -mail that said "Hey D, it's your old friend J.." I so wanted to fire back a nasty e -mail and say "You were NO friend of mine....you were the neighborhood bully and I'm surprised that you're not in prison!" I didn't respond.

Back to the present, and our daughter's situation. Even though this hasn't escalated into anything physical, Mom MD and I are not willing to let this behavior continue. We made the decision tonight to take action and write an e-mail to her teacher with a cc to the principal. We didn't go into specifics in the e-mail, but instead indicated that we'd put a handwritten letter from our daughter detailing the various incidents in the teacher's inbox tomorrow.

In addition, we requested that the teacher, principal, and school provide us with what actions were being taken to discipline these kids. Kids always need to know when their behavior is inappropriate. What they're doing is hurtful, degrading and utterly unacceptable! Are we taking the proper stance with an acceptable course of action? Should we have contacted the parents directly? Any personal experience, remedies or suggestions would be much appreciated.