Parents sue school after 12yr commits suicide after being forced to hug bullies.
63 replies, posted
http://www.wcvb.com/article/lawsuit-school-officials-forced-12-year-old-who-killed-herself-to-hug-bullies/21696371
"When are you going to kill yourself?" bullies allegedly asked in text and Snapchat messages. Other cruel messages allegedly read: "You have no friends," "fat," "jiggly," and "poor Mal."
Dianne Grossman said she and her husband repeatedly contacted school officials to tell them of the bullying, but that the school's response was inadequate.
Instead, the lawsuit states, officials suggested Mallory Grossman eat lunch in a guidance counselor's office to avoid bullies. She was also allegedly forced to hug one of her tormentors as an apparent attempt at reconciliation.
Diane Grossman said those who harassed her daughter still have not been punished.
Reminds me when a kid kept bullying me, so I ignored him. Then when we were leaving class he kicked me down the stairs which I beat the shit out of him after. Then I get in trouble for defending myself saying "you should just tell a teacher" when I did multiple times before.
A school's default position [the administration's in any case] is always to deny responsibility and blame the victim rather than actually punish offenders and solve problems. It is no suprise that things like this happen, all of us have seen it or been a part of it when we were in school.
I was bullied both physically and verbally multiple times throughout school and every time I told a teacher, they did fuck all
I'm not a violent person so taking matters into my own hands was not an option and it shouldn't have to be either. I hope these school officials are held accountable because shit like this boils my blood
The family should sue the parents of the children as well tbh.
As someone who was bullied to the point of raising a fist, and then being forced onto the "Retard Bus" I know the feeling.
It's fucking unbelievable how schools handle these situations. Right before the school year ended this year, my niece was being bullied by a kid who tried too write on her with a blackmarker, and even though she asked several times for the teachers to help, they only reacted when the kid ended up punching her in the gut for taking away the marker.
My brother-in-law and I ended up picking her up, and had a polite word with the staff after that.
You'd think after all these years, they'd do something about this.
It's not an impossible fix, it's not an expensive fix, yet they still go with the broken system.
You know, I've always wondered how the Bullies who cause someone to suicide, feel after hearing that someone they bullied committed suicide due to them.
Probably would push the blame away from themselves or blame their victim.
It's incredibly rare for people to feel genuine guilt over things like that, they usually are just trying to avoid the social repercussions for their actions.
Schools are pushed incredibly hard, at least in the US, to not expel or suspend kids. So they are moving towards these "reconciliation" type methods.
Yeah, and what do you do with the expelled kids, then?
Parents of bullied are stupid
I will unironically tell my kids to beat the bullies so sordidly they will only be able to work as freak in circus
Please don't. There's a certain treshold to defending yourself, and telling your children to actively be violent and aggressive is going sorta past that. I don't exactly know what the parents did or didn't do since the article isn't available for me (and I'm not too motivated to find out by using a proxy), but from what little I gathered they were sort of doing the right thing, it's just that the school failed them and the poor child in question real hard.
Good for you. Did they have second thoughts about bothering you after you kicked in his shit?
The only people who belong on the “retard bus” are school administrators who allow this shit to happen.
I can see you purchased the express ticket to hell.
Sounds like a problem for the parents of said kid to figure out
There's no reason that a school should have to be on the hook to provide for students that are actively trying to make the lives of the faculty and students miserable
You don't get to cause problems, and then when you're removed start asking "Well what do I get out of this???"
Many schools are more content to throw stuff like this under the hug and try and blame both sides in case of bullying. Shocker some kids have learned to attack and harass those that cannot adequately resist and are being passively condoned under apathy and wanting to preserve reputation over actually doing something.
when space colonization really gets going we can throw them on to the moon or mars
Gee, it's almost like actions have consequences, if the problem became this severe then only punishment will change anything in such a case. If you ruin your life because you contributed by turning a school into a poisonous environment by stepping on other people, don't expect any sympathy unless it's from empty headed parents trying to salvage the situation. Bullying is supposed to have consequences attached to it, not like how it's been handled by a large portion of school managements.
Lol, get a grip. You can’t just throw shitty pupils out without a plan for them - you need to put them somewhere where the learn to be not shitty. If the kids don’t go to school, they’ll just grow up to be criminals, and they’ll continue to be shitty. This “just throw them out rofl”-attitude is just silly, and it’s no solution.
If a school is having issues with bullying, they’re either having resource issues or training issues. If a school simply has too many shitty kids, you’re gonna have to spread them out to other school, so no individual school is under too much pressure.
I think I'll just repeat my post: what are you gonna do with the expelled kids? Are they just gonna stop being shitty now that they’re expelled? Are you just gonna move them to a different school? Are they gonna get homeschooled now by their shitty ass parents?
Don’t even so shortsighted.
I don't think expelling kids from the school is the answer, but forcing them to face the consequences of their actions is important. Being separated from their peers via something like in-school suspension or special classes that provide intervention techniques for at-risk youth should be standard. To a kid, being suspended outside of school is pretty much just a reward. Hey, no school! Being forced to take separate classes and special programs that aim to get to the root of why their behavior is so inexcusable is a much better solution.
Of course, as usual, that requires funding, staff, and special training which school districts don't feel like allocating, so until the very core of school administration is uprooted, it's not going to happen.
Education in America is rotten to its core with uncaring administrators and board members who pocket money like nobody's business, outdated teaching methods, poorly managed budgets, and schools that lack the appropriate resources.
After getting relentlessly bullied by an individual despite telling teachers, one day I snapped and put him in a headlock, repeatedly punching him in the head. Never heard from him again after that.
I'm not boasting, I probably had the muscle mass of a blobfish, but sometimes it's the only way of solving the issue.
I actually worked hands on with one these program in a pretty large public school district, and honestly, the only real effect it had was artificially bumping up graduation rates and pushing down suspension/expulsion rates. The classes, pretty much across the board, ended up having super low expectations where kids who were failing everything in regular school were able to pass with very little effort. The district then paraded the these results as if they actually had any value at all when all they were really doing is passing kids with zero of the normal skills expected of a graduate.
Getting an education is not a fundamental Human right, it is a privileged and should be treated as such. Children who actively disrupt the learning environment should be reconciled with/reprimanded/removed. Like you insinuated, shit kids are gonna be shit kids so why protect them to such a degree? When it literally comes down to kids committing suicide why do we say "Oh but what are we gonna do with them" or "Let's not be short sighted"? The best lesson for these shitty kids in my opinion is that if you are gonna give a punch you better be able to take one. But sure lets not be short sighted: The kid would have grown old and died anyway so whats the point.
I have no sympathy for bullies like this. They deserve to get kicked in the head with a steel-toed boot and their families sued into the ground.
Higher education may be a privledge but by no means should children in their formative years be destroyed so utterly by their own failings at that age. That's just too cruel for me to agree to.
I was bullied to the point I tried killing myself several times through out my life. I have no respect, or regard for bullies, but you'll never get anywhere by tossing them out entirely.
The aggressors should be punished.
They shouldn't be forced to not have learning opportunities again unless you're intentionally just being cruel to children, even if they're stupid kids that's wrong.
It is being "Stupid kids" though? Yes, it's tragic, and it's genuinely something I can empathize with, but that's literally what it is. Kids being stupid and cruel, and you know what? A lot of kids are like that, and grow out of it if given the chance.
These kids deserve serious consequences, but they don't deserve to have their entire lives destroyed when they could learn from this lesson and be good going forward.
Or we can just make life a "you fuck up once and it's done" deal for everything across the board as an experiment, could be fun
I would step away from this argument emotionally if you want to carry it forward honestly.
I've had people bully me to the point I tried killing myself. I've been there. I get it. It's ugly shit. I hate some of those people with all my heart. What was done was stupid, cruel, purposeful, but
no one's intention was to make me kill myself. Can I hold them accountable for an action that is hard, if not impossible to anticipate? I don't know that I can even though at the time I felt it was solely their fault. Years down the line, I don't believe that it was solely the tormentors fault, even if I can look at those actions and see them for what they were I don't know that I can view this as evil when it is just stupid and cruel as I said.
Honestly, it's hard to figure a proper punishment for bullies usually. If they're anything like mine, detention and suspension are merely free time and vacation respectively. In the case of a bully causing someone to commit or even attempt suicide, I argue it can be taken to the court of law, and if not against the bully due to age factors, then either faculty and/or the parents. But anything less than that can't really have an easy judgment since really, short of direct punishment from the parents themselves, schools are basically unable to do shit without risking getting sued, and teachers developed apathy as a result.
how many fucking kids have to kill themselves before the bullying issue is solved
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