Bullied boy brain-damaged after suicide attempt; Deal is reached with family.

Anchorage Daily News ^ | February 8, 2004 | KATIE PESZNECKER

[skeptoid]

Bullied boy brain-damaged after suicide attempt SCHOOL DISTRICT: Deal is reached with family of gifted Central Middle School student.

By KATIE PESZNECKER Anchorage Daily News

(Published: February 8, 2004)

The Anchorage School District has settled out of court with a family that said their 14-year-old son tried to kill himself and was left permanently brain-damaged because of relentless bullying that school staffers knew about but didn't stop. School District officials and the family's attorney have declined to disclose any details of the settlement, including the amount of money being paid. The lawyer, Dennis Maloney, said the case is so outrageous that he has founded an anti-school-harassment group called Bye Bye Bullies and is helping to sponsor a conference on the subject this summer. Documents and testimony in the case, in an 8-inch-thick file in the Anchorage state courthouse, describe the boy as testing at highly gifted levels in math and science. In 1997, he enrolled at Central Middle School, a program that specializes in those areas. He was fascinated by rockets and airplanes, mastered rock climbing, and obtained his pilot's license at age 14.

[NYCVirago]

What a horrible, sad story. Please give my best wishes to your son.

[NYCVirago]

The point is, schools were not created to raise our children. If they misbehave, they should be removed (why does the gov't force parents to keep them in the system?), if they aren't doing well in the public school environment, parents should take them out.

This stuff happens in private schools, too, even religious ones.

[Hildy]

Seems to me that if you know your kid is being harrassed and you still send him back there, you're an accomplice to the crime.

[Tax-chick]

Homeschooling is unregulated in Alaska. I'm astonished that parents would allow this to happen to a child with so much potential ... a sign of how nearly everyone in the country has succumbed to the Schooling brainwashing.

[Hot Tabasco]

I hate bullies! Being smaller than average and moving from a little town in upper Michigan to a Detroit public school undergoing segregation in my junior year of high school was definitely a bad decision on my part.

I think the character "Tanner" from Bad News Bears pretty much sums up what life was like for me in Detroit! LOL!

Thank God I never lost my sense of humor or my willingness to stand up for what's right.

My heart goes out to that poor kid and am saddened by the fact that there was nobody there to stand by his side.........

[jocon307]

Yes, I would have to say that was my thought too. When my daughter was very little I had her in day care, but I knew even then that had she been a different child that might not have been an option.

But it still sounds like the school administration really blew it on this one, knew it, and deserve to pay. From later in the article: "...But school records describing that incident and others involving Tom and classmates were destroyed by the school at the end of the 1998-99 school year under the district's policy, according to school officials. That was after the boy's attempted suicide but before the lawsuit was filed."

That sounds pretty suspicious to me. Whatever happened to the concept of "your permanent record". I certainly doubt any school rids itself of all student disciplinary records, or anything, that fast.

[Lijahsbubbe]

My heart goes out to that poor kid and am saddened by the fact that there was nobody there to stand by his side.........

Good post and I'm saddened by that also. I was just bragging about my son yesterday concerning this topic. He is a young man in his twenties now.

I recall a day when he was in the first grade. He told me that day that they were having sports olympics of some sort. There was a small scrawny kid that I suppose was considered nerdy. Nobody wanted to be his partner. My little boy told me proudly how he jumped forward and said "I'll be his partner!"

I was so proud of him and still am!

[metesky]

Works every time.
;O)

[fuzzycat]

Yeah, the grammer school I went to was replete with white trash bullies. My brother and I were set upon every day.Finally one day I cold cocked the worst one right in the nose. His blood gushed from his nose and we were friends from that day on. Even went on to form a band after high school. And then there was the punk on the school bus. When I went back to his seat and got my knees on his chest and pummelled his face the crap ended. He was thrown off the bus. These two individuals learned an important lesson those days-small does not mean weak-especially if your father was a First Cavalry sargeant.

[Irene Adler]

That's a great story. I am proud of your son, too.

[agrarianlady]

Homeschooling is unregulated in Alaska. I'm astonished that parents would allow this to happen to a child with so much potential ... a sign of how nearly everyone in the country has succumbed to the Schooling brainwashing.

Amen. My children are going to private school if I have to work day and night to pay for it. And if that doesn't live up to my expectations, I'll homeschool. I went to public school. No way is that happening to my sweet daughters.

This situation brings to mind C.S. Lewis' book called Prince Caspian. Here's how the book opens:

Behind the Gym

It was a dull autumn day and Jill Pole was crying behind the gym.

She was crying because they had been bullying her. This is not going to be a school story, so I shall say as little as possible about Jill's school, which is not a pleasant subject. It was "coeducational," a school for both boys and girls, what used to be called a "mixed" school, some said it was not nearly so mixed as the minds of the people who ran it. These people had the idea that boys and girls should be allowed to do what they liked. And unfortunately what ten or fifteen of the biggest boys and girls liked best was bullying the others. All sorts of things, horrid things, went on which at an ordinary school would have been found out and stopped in half a term; but at this school they weren't. Or even if they were, the people who did them were not expelled or punished. The Head said they were interesting psychological cases and sent for them and talked to them for hours. And if you knew the right sort of things to say to the Head, the main result was that you became rather a favorite than otherwise.

C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair Copyright 1953

[3catsanadog]

Kids get a permanent record if they don't celebrate Gay Pride days at school or if they opt out of sex education.

[BibChr]

Ahhhhhh; socialization!

Dan

[Tax-chick]

I went to public school. No way is that happening to my sweet daughters.

Good for you - that should help them remain "sweet daughters!" I used to be a nice person, before I went to junior high school. I wouldn't inflict that on any child ... I was well on in my 30's before someone in my prayer group realized why I was so angry.

My parents didn't know any better, back in the 70's, but it's hard to believe parents today don't know they have other choices. Alaska even has "virtual public school," so parents can teach the schools' curriculum at home at no cost. There's no reason for such misery to be inflicted on any child, it's just heartbreaking. I have a son named Tom, too :-).

[Mamzelle]

Given the natural (can't be denied) predatory nature of undisciplined children, it would behoove the school system to prudently invest in a strong infrastructure of supervision.

Cameras (newly cheap), short-fused intolerance of misbehavior, constant adult observation, investment in security officers.

Teachers must stand in the halls in between classes--and trade off with one another for bathroom and other breaks. But there must be an adult or two in the halls--principals must enforce this policy strongly. Bathrooms are a problem, maybe even have cameras there!

Another potential danger are the "alleys" in between the outbuildings. These should have cameras and adult patrols.

When a kid misbehaves, FINE the parents. As for buses--do not allow any child who shows aggression to ride. Make Mommy drive.

Whatever we need to do to toughen up our kids, they should at least not fear for their lives when they attend school--or just shut the place down.

[Ichneumon]

A few years ago I saw a "Dateline" type program showing how these bullies act on hidden camera. They are down right mean for being so small. Evil little kids.

As one of the school "weirdos" who prefered reading to sports, and who blew the grading curve for the less scholastically able students, I got to see a lot of the bullies' behavior up close and personal.

And contrary to a lot of people's dismissive attitudes of "aw isn't that cute" or "boys will be boys", I know for a fact that most of the chronic bullies weren't just kids horsing around, they were young sadistic sociopaths on their way towards bigger and better crimes when they got older.

I've often wondered what percentage of crime could be prevented if society would take it more seriously and bring the disciplinary hammer down hard on young bullies, before years of looking the other way or "letting the kids work it out between themselves" (i.e. letting the bullies get away with it while the other kids learn how to most safely capitulate) sets the flawed personalities in stone.

[Tax-chick]

Alaska even has "virtual public school," so parents can teach the schools' curriculum at home at no cost.

Correction, I'm not sure this program was running at the time of the incident in the article ... but they still had unregulated homeschooling in the state.

[TexasCajun]

Conservatives should play the name-game just as our opponents do:

Public Schools = Government Schools

[N3WBI3]

I was a real gentle kid and got bullied all the time, I would report it to teachers and the only thing that happened was I got it worse the next time.

One day my mother said next time it happens fight back, try to take his head off. She knew I would still lose (I was a small kid) but she also knew the torture would stop when they saw I was not an easy mark. Sure enough a few days later someone tripped me walking off the bus, I got up jumped on the kid and started swinging. I walked away with a bloody nose (so did the other kid) and it never happened again.

As a side not my mother got called into school for a conference and when she told the principle that she told me to fight back the administrators jaw hit the floor "we don't do things that way", to which my mother said "well your way does not work".

[TruthConquers]

Your post remeinds me of something that I read about the history of public schools. Orginally in the 1850's when public schooling got its start in Massachusetts, one of the main selling lines was that it was a way to end crime. As usual, they were vastly mistaken.