We Too Will Sue! -- America's Grieving Parents Sue Schools as Suicides of Bullied Teen Daughters Skyrocket

I was looking for a parking spot at the Civil Court when my phone’s “silent” mode began buzzing. The caller was an attorney whose clients were parents of a female high student who had committed suicide. She had been incessantly tormented not only at school but also via TikTok, Meta, Instagram, and on the Internet by other students. The attorney told me, “I need you on this tragic case. My clients’ daughter committed suicide after countless and repeated bullying victimized her on the campus, in her classes, in the cafeteria, and on the Internet. With your background as Director of Child Welfare and Attendance in a public school district with some thirty one schools, you know the drill: misguided students can stalk, prey, and kill.”

After surveying recent years, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that sexual violence, suicidal thoughts, suicidal behavior and other mental health woes affected many teens regardless of race or ethnicity; but girls and LGBTQ youth fared the worst. More than 17,000 U.S. high school students were surveyed in class in the fall of 2021. In 30 years of collecting similar data, “we’ve never seen these kinds of devastating, consistent findings,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of CDC’s adolescent and school health division. “There’s no question young people are telling us they are in crisis. The data really call on us to act.”

But are schools fully and completely responsive to the “crisis” daily experienced by America’s teenagers? The nation’s schools are the epitomes of education. Yet, do they convene students in “responsibility assemblies” and frankly discuss the facts published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? Are schools alert about and aware of cell phone usage and how a frightening number of their own students misuse cell phone, as a matter of social power honed by “normal” skill and harassment via Meta, TikTok, Instagram, other social media and the Internet? Are school principals, teachers and counselors alerted to and focused on the rise, on their campuses, of bullying, name-calling, jeering, verbal threats and other inhumane acts by students against students? Are schools regularly calling parents and requesting Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences due to mounting and increasingly gross misbehaviors threatening their own children?

What the CDC Informs Us About Bullying

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose. Bullying can occur in-person or through technology.

Bullying has serious and lasting negative effects on the mental health and overall well-being of youth involved in bullying in any way, including: those who bully others, youth who are bullied, as well as those youth who both bully others and are bullied by others, sometimes referred to as “bully-victims.” Victims of bulling are not happy campers, and school teachers, counselors, secretaries, vice principals, and principals need to watch and monitor the social interactions and behaviors of victims of bullying. Said another way, professional school staff need to leave their offices periodically and walk about and survey the campus, from which they earn their livelihood, to find out for themselves what is going on among the children they are to protect and for whom they stand “in loco parentis” (in place of the parents) for six to eight hours every day of the week.

Even youth who have observed but not participated in bullying behavior report significantly more feelings of helplessness and less sense of connectedness and support from responsible adults (parents/schools) than youth who are not victims of bullying and have not witnessed bullying behavior.

Negative outcomes of bullying (for youth who bully others, youth who are bullied, and youth who both are bullied and bully others) may include: depression, anxiety, involvement in interpersonal violence or sexual violence, substance abuse, poor social functioning, and poor school performance, including lower grade point averages, standardized test scores, and poor attendance.

Youth who report having frequently bullied others and youth who report being frequently bullied themselves are at increased risk for suicide-related behavior, the final feelings of being demeaned and trashed.

Youth who report both bullying others and being bullied (bully-victims) have the highest risk for suicide- related behavior of any groups that report involvement in bullying.

What the CDC Informs Us About Suicide

• Suicide-related behaviors include the following:
  • Suicide: Death caused by self-directed injurious behavior with any intent to die.
  • Suicide attempt: A non-fatal self-directed potentially injurious behavior with any intent to die as a result of the behavior. A suicide attempt may or may not result in injury.
  • Suicidal ideation: Thinking about, considering, or planning for suicide.
• Suicide-related behavior is complicated and rarely the result of a single source of trauma or stress.
• People who engage in suicide-related behavior often experience overwhelming feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.
• ANY involvement with bullying behavior is one stressor which may significantly contribute to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that raise the risk of suicide.
• Youth who are at increased risk for suicide- related behavior are dealing with a complex interaction of multiple relationship (peer, family, or romantic), mental health, and school stressors.

What We Know about Bullying and Suicide Together

• We know that bullying behavior and suicide-related behavior are closely related. This means youth who report any involvement with bullying behavior are more likely to report high levels of suicide-related behavior than youth who do not report any involvement with bullying behavior.
• We know enough about the relationship between bullying and suicide-related behavior to make evidence-based recommendations to improve prevention.

Statistics & Citations: Megan Meier Foundation as of June 2021

These statistics and their accompanying citations are provided to students, parents, educators, and other professionals in order to spread highly reputable information and sources for issues regarding bullying and cyberbullying. The Megan Meier Foundation should not be held accountable for the accuracy of these statistics.

Bullying

• Nearly 2 out of 3 teens have witnessed bullying at school, and 1/2 have experienced it first-hand (Patchin & Hinduja, 2020)
• 2 in 3 students are willing to step in to defend, support, or assist those being bullied at school and online when they see it (Patchin & Hinduja, 2020)
• Barriers to helping when tweens witness bullying at school or online included being afraid of making things worse, not knowing what to do or say, not knowing how to report it online, being afraid others kids will make fun of them, being afraid to get hurt, and not knowing who to tell (Patchin & Hinduja, 2020)
• 13% of students (9-12 years old) reported experiencing bullying at school and online (Patchin & Hinduja, 2020)
• Bullying and Cyberbullying is the 2nd (62%) biggest child health concern among parents (C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health, 2020)
• More than 8 in 10 LGBTQ students experienced harassment or assault at school (GLSEN: Gay Lesbian, Straight, Education Network 2020)
• Students who experience bullying are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, lower academic achievement, and dropping out of school. (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2019)
• Students who are both targets of bullying and engage in bullying behavior are at greater risk for both mental health and behavior problems than students who only bully or are only bullied. (CDC, 2019)
• 20% (1 out of every 5) middle and high school students report being bullied each year (National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES], 2019)
• Bullied students indicate that bullying has a negative effect on how they feel about themselves (27%), their relationships with friends and family (19%), their school work (19%), and physical health (14%) (NCES, 2019)
• 41% of students who reported being bullied at school indicated that they think the bullying would happen again. (NCES, 2019 )
• According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2019), of students who reported being bullied:
  • 13% were made fun of, called names, or insulted; 
  • 13% were the subject of rumors;
  • 5% were pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on; 
  • and 5% were excluded from activities on purpose.
• A slightly higher portion of students who identify as female than as male report being bullied at school (24% vs. 17%) (NCES: National Center for Educational Statistics, 2019)
• According to the National Center for Education Statistics bullied students reported that bullying occurred in the following places:
  • The hallway or stairwell at school (43%)
  • Inside the classroom (42%)
  • In the cafeteria (27%)
  • Outside on school grounds (22%)
  • Online or by text (15%)
  • In the bathroom or locker room (12%)
  • On the school bus (8%)
• In 2019, over half (52.3%) of students said they had been bullied at school in the past 30 days, compared to 38.6% in 2016 (a 35% increase) (Hinduja and Patchin 2019).
• 46% of bullied students report notifying an adult at school about the incident (NCES, 2019)

Whether or not they are facing litigation following students’ gross physical injuries from bullying, and suicide victimization from bullying, schools must develop educational programs to teach students how to confront bullies, respond to gross and threatening put-downs by taking an alternate route by launching their own positive Internet, Instagram, and Meta posts; or distract their friends with real-world social-growth activities so they don’t get consumed and transformed into bullies online. Being sued (litigation) by mourning and grief-stricken parents is a little late for schools to suddenly and frantically decide that it is time for various and sundry campus interactions to block, stop, and stay bullying; and emergency agenda items must be frantically added to the next School Board meeting. After all, if one student is not safe on a campus, then no child is safe on that campus. True education and intellectual growth cannot occur on a campus growing with bullies who engage in 24-hour, round-the-clock continuation of their behavior by prowling the Internet for the right place to drop their poison against a campus victim they have continuously assaulted repeatedly on campus. For them the Internet is a theater and they are the executive producers of their tirades, slurs, name-calling, scarcely-veiled references against a certain student, against whom they unleash their vitriolic hatred.

School teachers, counselors and principals ought to pose questions in regular staff meetings: “Does a cyberbully have plenty of places to hide?” What can, or should, we do if a Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Meta profile, blazing with the name of our school, pops up this year and spreads ugly and anonymous rumors? What can we do to block anonymous bullying, false stories, name-calling, racist terms, dehumanizing rumors, and abusive sex talk? When can we do it and why must we move quickly and continuously? A good first step is to recognize that bullies are grossly unhappy beings who feel unwanted and unloved, whether admired on campus or blossoming on the Internet or social media platforms, with lies, racial slurs, homophobic tirades, horrid physical descriptions of students hated, and open threats. Bullies transfer their self-hatred onto others by inventing lies, hoisting exaggerations, torpedoing threats, nasty name-calling, and aggravated verbal assaults against race and ethnicity and gender preference.

Further elements that schools must take a dramatic leadership role in, are: (1) What daily programs against bullying, name-calling, and sexual aggression does the school have in place? (2) What online education programs does the school utilize; (3) What “behavioral contracts” does the school mandate its students and parents sign?; (4) What mandatory in-class education and assemblies-in-education does the school have its students attend and write essays and reports about? (5) What for parents only anti-bullying regular programs does the school have in place? (6) What press and media communications does the school take advantage of to alert, teach, and warn students about the horrid subjects of bullying, gender preference harassment, and sexual aggression? (7) For its professional staff and students, does the school partner with other schools in conducting “best practices” current, legal, regular, and necessary anti-bullying programs?; (8) Does the school partner with the local law enforcement agency to hire SROs (Security Resource Officers) to train and educate students on the law-breaking aspects of bullying, name-calling, threatening, and personal injury? Returning to the behavioral contract cited above (#3): Schools who do not have students read and sign Behavioral Contracts need to do so…immediately! It is important that students promise their behavior, both verbally and in writing. Special assemblies during which students are educated on the mandatory instructions to sign, observe, adhere to and heed behavioral contracts—indeed, the multiple commandments of anti-bullying behavior—are vital in re-modeling a campus that addresses students’ needs; protects students from marauding bullies; and goes so far as to learn how students manage their time at home and what drives them to Instagram, TikTok, Meta, and the Internet. Adolescents will engage in behaviors out of sight and out of range; three such social platforms are listed above. School staffs need to realize every school in America is encircled by a new and growing generation. Their social mores, folkways, judgments and desires are remote and alienated from the schools’ adults responsible for overseeing and ensuring their education, emotional security and physical safety.

Schools need to frequently consult with their campus safety and personal injury insurance providers on education, welfare and safety programs that, when practiced, increase student and staff awareness, reduce the insurance premiums and, hopefully, the number of lawsuits. Schools need to remember that correct verbal and physical behavior is a daily necessity! Schools need to have regular (1) In-Main-Office; (2) Classroom; and (3) Assembly sessions on name-calling, bullying, sexual aggression; racial slurs; and verbal threats. Written reports, regularly produced and published for faculty and teachers could protect schools against lawsuits. Reaching out to other schools, who have successfully conducted such behavioral correction programs can also go a long way toward thwarting litigation. Parents seldom sue schools if their sons or daughters fail to graduate. Similarly, parents may possibly decide not to sue a school district if the schools have been developing, conducting and maintaining daily programs stipulating correct, ethical and healthy social behaviors, no name-calling, no ethnic, cultural or social class ridicules, and no bullying on or away from campus, e.g., on the Internet.

School Districts’ Board of Education must mandate each school in its jurisdiction order every teacher not to bully; not call students out of their names; not laugh at embarrassing pranks that other students pull on a non-suspecting student; and teachers should interrupt, as necessary, the expected exam or lecture and, instead, preach to, and teach, the students about bullying, name-calling, racial terms, and sexual harassment. Since schools districts must carry insurance, they must also take advantage of safe schools educational programs their insurance provider conducts. Such involvement might possibly reduce the size and number of lawsuits. School districts can certainly request their insurance providers’ assistance with creating, coordinating and conducting personal injury education and prevention programs for campus use and student assemblies. As a country-and-western singer once said, “Liability can become cryability.”