SC Chair remains unconvinced that long series of bullying incidents led to suicide

Masslive.com ^ | 4/28/2011 | Niina Heikkinen

[Vermont Lt]

With South Hadley High School preparing for a new principal and the School Committee moving forward with several new members, former South Hadley School Committee Chairman Ed Boisselle says he is still not convinced that Phoebe Prince or her family sought help from the school because of continuous bullying from South Hadley students.

[Vermont Lt]

This is an update from our conversation yesterday. Pay close attention towards the end of the story where the School Committee Chair discusses why you are only reading about one side of the story.

I am not posting so you will agree with him. However, I think this story is a great example of one sided media bias. It is a good exercise in reading the media side, and "thinking" about what they are getting out of this.

The MassLive web site has a "Bullying" tag on their front page. Do you think that these stories are driving traffic? You betcha! Are they, and the local paper, making money off from this story? You betcha.

As I wrote, I am not expecting anyone to agree with this guy. I am asking you to evaluate the content of all of these stories, contrasted with the laws that prevent the school from making statements AND with the other kids not talking on the advice of counsel.

[ClearCase_guy]

Good post.

I hate bullying. I think schools typically do a bad job of handling these incidents. That being said, the school committee chair has a decent point. The media frames the issue as they want to. The laws make sure the schools can say very little in response. Therefore, we cannot trust that we are getting the whole truth.

Whenever someone commits suicide, people ask "Why?" but the answer they settle upon is not necessarily the correct answer.

And as far as I'm concerned the vast majority of media coverage of bullying is really nothing more than a promotion of homosexual tolerance in government schools. The Phoebe Prince story does not fit that model -- but that doesn't mean the media won't make use of it to gin up interest in "anti-bullying" laws which will push their own agenda and which will do little to help children like Prince.

[Vermont Lt]

The kid from Springfield (the 11 year who hung himself) is a much better example of a little kid that did nothing and got so abused he could not take it.

Any child’s suicide is a tragedy. I wish folks would use both of these as an example to get more into your kids’ heads.

And to have both of these happen so close to each other, but in two very different socio-economic worlds is too much of a coincidence. People should be looking at the common issues between the cases.

[Oldpuppymax]

First I’ve heard of the story, but I’ll make a guess. If no charges of bullying are to be pressed, I’d bet that Phoebe’s “attackers” are either black or Mexican. Also a fair possibility that Phoebe was white. After all, the new Regime policy dictates that whites CANNOT be victims.

[fungoking]

The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act while well intended has at times really hurt schools. A parent or student can make any claim but the school can't do anything to rebut even if the know the claim is false due to FERPA. A couple of years ago a local district gave a kid a year susp from sport for “only” flipping off his coach during a basketball game. When he couldn't play football the next year his mom went to the paper and tv stations to talk about how harsh the punishment was to her honor roll student who was never in trouble. The school couldn't respond because of FERPA, so public sympathy was with mom. Happy ending, she sued and the kid's record became public. Turns out that this "never in trouble honor student" was a D-F student that was a frequent flyer to the office and had been kicked off another team for spitting at the coach.

That story was in much smaller print on the back page.

We had a JR High student in my town with a history of multiple false claims against staff. Finally she accused a male teacher of fondling her (in class with other students). He gets his name in the paper and suspended with pay for 2 weeks while the district investigates a claim they knew was false. Student gets no consequences, teacher will never get his reputation back. She should at least come with a warning label to all future teachers but most won't know because of FERPA.

[Vermont Lt]

I not 100% sure but this is a pretty affluent, predominately white suburb. The kids that did the bullying acted horribly. But they are portrayed as criminals, when there was a lot more going on.

In my mind what they did wasn’t criminal manslaughter. But these are all upper middle class kids.

[Vermont Lt]

I not 100% sure but this is a pretty affluent, predominately white suburb. The kids that did the bullying acted horribly. But they are portrayed as criminals, when there was a lot more going on.

In my mind what they did wasn’t criminal manslaughter. But these are all upper middle class kids.

[TheOldLady]

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