Posted on 05/16/2024 5:32:40 AM PDT by Red Badger
A 10-year-old boy in Indiana killed himself after a two-year bullying campaign which his parents claim his school failed to stop, despite contacting school officials 20 times in a year.
Sammy Teusch, aged 10, of Greenfield, Indiana, died by suicide on Sunday, May 5, according to an interview his parents, Sam and Nichole Teusch, gave to 13 News WTHR. They claim Sammy, one of four siblings, took his own life after enduring constant bullying which had become increasingly physical and which Greenfield Intermediate School had done little to address.
Sammy’s parents claimed in the interview that the bullying started two years ago at elementary school with verbal taunts and then progressed to physical assaults. His parents presented several pictures of bruising as evidence of the alleged assaults. “They were making fun of him for his glasses in the beginning, then on to make fun of his teeth. It went on for a long time… He was beat up on the school bus, and the kids broke his glasses and everything,” his father said, according to the New York Post.
Sam Teusch claims that he had been in contact with his son’s school 20 times in the last year regarding the ongoing abuse, but that nothing effective had been done. “I called the school, and I’m like, ‘What are you doing about this? It keeps getting worse, and worse, and worse.'” The superintendent, Dr. Harold Olin, claimed, “no bullying report was ever submitted,” when 13 News reached out to the school about the allegations, but the father maintains, “they knew this was going on.”
The Teusch family is being strongly supported by their local community in their time of grief, according to an article by local publication The Daily Reporter. “The past two or three days we’ve probably had 1,000 people here and I probably knew 20 of them … There was a giant man that barely fit through that door who came in here and just had tears flowing down his face, and he gave me the biggest hug,” Sam Teusch told the paper.
Dozens of tributes have been left for Sammy at a tree in the family’s front yard, and hundreds attended the boy’s funeral at Brandywine Community Church in Greenfield, including the local Freedom Riders and Christian Motorcycle Club, who offered their support, according to a post by WTHR porter Chase Houle on Twitter.
Been to the school 20 times and did not take the child out of the place.
Was the kid handcuffed to the school?
Take him out of that school.
This is tragic and infuriating, that for real bullying, school officials do nothing. My heart goes out to the family.
If this was my kid, the school would have experienced a rush of unexplained ass-kickings instead of a suicide.
Schools often. Find it useful to maintain order by sacricing certain students.
In these “bullying” stories there always seems to be a chunk of backstory left out.
WHY was the kid being bullied and singled out?
Big glasses and buck teeth apparently....................
Greenfield, IN is a small town of 23,000 in farm country, there are probably no other schools unless the family moved from town. The kid and family was/are between a rock and a hard place.
The kid was trapped in a government school/prison.
For kids their age, those are two valid (but stupid) reasons for the bullying...
The student handbook clearly states on page 367 paragraph 6 that Bullying reports must be submitted in triplicate on form BS 072b, which can be obtained from the Superintendent's office by submitting a request on form BS 071a also obtained from the Superintendent's office.
Allow 6 weeks for delivery.
Because he’s an insecure and vulnerable child. That is all that is needed. Not every kid is 6’0 and 270lbs at 8 years old.
Unless you are physically of beating your bullies to a pulp, they will focus on one child and ensure hus entire 8 hour day is a continual of bullying.
Ask me how I know this.
Home school.
And slight build.
I know they are suffering, but if the bullying was so bad that they had complained twenty times but never removed the child from school, then they contributed to his death.
When my son was in the eighth grade, he suffered from bullying. I pulled him out of school and home-schooled him. That solved the problem immediately.
stop blaming bullies for a childs death.
the boy wasnt in prison and could leave at any time. His parents failed him, not the school system.
Either take care of your child YOURSELF, or just stfu about it, its NOT the schools job to raise your child and address his/ her mental issues
Let this be a cautionary warning. YOU are responsible for your own safety and security! You cannot trust any system or process to protect you - they will fail! The parents bear the ultimate responsibility for not protecting their son. As a man - your responsibility is to protect your family. As parents you protect your children. Questions?
Reads like AI fiction
The siblings knew who the bullies are.
“stop blaming bullies”?
Some of what you say makes sense, but there are bullies out there, and they need to be dealt with. Yes, they harbor blame.
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