Private School suicide and cyber bullying lawsuit - Latin School of Chicago

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/15-year-old-boy-cyberbullying-suicide-latin-school-chicago-lawsuit/

The complaint (embedded in news link) here is horrific. Someone in Chicago sent it along.

Anyone know anything?

This is so sad and disturbing. The kids should be charged and all of their names should be made public so no college will ever accept them.

Yes, on mistake when they're 15 years old should f-up their lives forever and ever and ever.... holy cow? Wtf is wrong with you they are all children. They made stupid horrible mistakes. Allow them to grow up and learn. Sheesh. I'm glad the law protects minors.

I hope you feel that way about teen criminals in DC, too.

I do, actually. Children need to be protected. All children. Once they are adults then they can F-up their lives, go to jail, whatever. Until then society has a responsibility to teach them, nurture them and let them grow. Some will fail, but not everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read the text message strings within the first 40 pages and it’s sad..,the kids wer a little harsh but DB clearly had no social kills and no idea how to respond. A few kids even chimed in to reassure them they weren’t mad at him, that it was all love, etc. it didn’t seem that bad.

I’m heartbroken for the victim’s sister who found him. She was already having a horrible year. From the surface of the complaint, though, I don’t get why the plaintiffs are including her text messages to her mom. She does seem very socially awkward and it’s sad that other kids weren’t friendly to her, but that is different than bullying her.

For a 40k school, you’d think they’d have better mental health and socialization supports in place…at least social skills groups and lunch bunches.

To anyone experiencing anything like this with your child: please do not rely on email. Pick up the phone. Get on someone’s calendar. This is not victim blaming; just an advocacy tip. I’m a school employee and we are deluged with emails. I’m like an emergency room trailer nurse with email. The big, big ones I just can’t tackle right now…then they get buried. It’s not an excuse; just an explanation. If you’re teaching or with students all day, you’re not in front of your inbox all day. In the tiny slivers of time that you have to catch up, that’s a LOT to dump on people.

Mental health and social skills are outside things for parents to do. That's not the school responsibility.

This is what parents of bullies say. Every parent I’ve ever known who had a child that was a bully would talk like this. They victim blame. Of course you can’t force friendships but you can certainly enforce kindness.

No, my children are far from bullies but as a parent, I take full responsibility for their needs including getting them out of a bad school situation. You cannot enforce kindness when it comes to tweens/teens when they are outside of school/social media if you are a school employee and that's on the parents. The parents should be monitoring the text/social media. The school should be monitoring the bullying in school but most don't so if you put your faith in the school dealing with it, you will fail your child. You need kind parents to model kind behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/15-year-old-boy-cyberbullying-suicide-latin-school-chicago-lawsuit/

The complaint (embedded in news link) here is horrific. Someone in Chicago sent it along.

Anyone know anything?

This is so sad and disturbing. The kids should be charged and all of their names should be made public so no college will ever accept them.

Yes, on mistake when they're 15 years old should f-up their lives forever and ever and ever.... holy cow? Wtf is wrong with you they are all children. They made stupid horrible mistakes. Allow them to grow up and learn. Sheesh. I'm glad the law protects minors.

The bullies parents should be held accountable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read the text message strings within the first 40 pages and it’s sad..,the kids wer a little harsh but DB clearly had no social kills and no idea how to respond. A few kids even chimed in to reassure them they weren’t mad at him, that it was all love, etc. it didn’t seem that bad.

I’m heartbroken for the victim’s sister who found him. She was already having a horrible year. From the surface of the complaint, though, I don’t get why the plaintiffs are including her text messages to her mom. She does seem very socially awkward and it’s sad that other kids weren’t friendly to her, but that is different than bullying her.

For a 40k school, you’d think they’d have better mental health and socialization supports in place…at least social skills groups and lunch bunches.

To anyone experiencing anything like this with your child: please do not rely on email. Pick up the phone. Get on someone’s calendar. This is not victim blaming; just an advocacy tip. I’m a school employee and we are deluged with emails. I’m like an emergency room trailer nurse with email. The big, big ones I just can’t tackle right now…then they get buried. It’s not an excuse; just an explanation. If you’re teaching or with students all day, you’re not in front of your inbox all day. In the tiny slivers of time that you have to catch up, that’s a LOT to dump on people.

Mental health and social skills are outside things for parents to do. That's not the school responsibility.

This is what parents of bullies say. Every parent I’ve ever known who had a child that was a bully would talk like this. They victim blame. Of course you can’t force friendships but you can certainly enforce kindness.

+1
Parents who are bullies have kids who are bullies. Only when society stops rewarding this will it change. Harvey Weinstein was very well rewarded during his career and only fell at the end.... there are so many examples of those who've fallen, but more examples of those that just get rewarded. Trump hasn't fallen yet for example...

Agree, but as a parent you don't leave your child in a bad situation to prove your point. You are expecting bad/unreasonable people to suddenly turn good and active parents which isn't going ot happen. Your obligation is to your child and get them out of there and mental health treatment asap. You can fight that battle once they are out of the school and no longer targets.

[Anonymous]

our "well regarded" k-8 has a toothless bullying policy. parents don't want to complain and be seen as "problem parents" because it could affect your child's admission to private 9th grade. lots of mean discord chats and group text chains, one student takes other kids' photos from the online school directory without their permission and posts them in his chat as others make fun of the kid. my DC says this particular bullying student and his buddies then bother kids at school in person - teachers are too busy to care, bullying kids don't listen when the other kids tell them to stop. very disappointing and concerning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/15-year-old-boy-cyberbullying-suicide-latin-school-chicago-lawsuit/

The complaint (embedded in news link) here is horrific. Someone in Chicago sent it along.

Anyone know anything?

This is so sad and disturbing. The kids should be charged and all of their names should be made public so no college will ever accept them.

Yes, on mistake when they're 15 years old should f-up their lives forever and ever and ever.... holy cow? Wtf is wrong with you they are all children. They made stupid horrible mistakes. Allow them to grow up and learn. Sheesh. I'm glad the law protects minors.

There are mistakes and then there’s psychotic sociopathic behavior. Being mean once or twice or sending a mean text here and there is one thing. That is a mistake. Relentless bullying which I consider to be sociopathic and psychotic is a completely different story and society should be warned about these kids. They will do it again and it could be worse in the future. There’s something wrong with them if at 15 they think it’s OK to torture someone like that. Your moral code is formed by then and sadly their moral code is sociopathic in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:our "well regarded" k-8 has a toothless bullying policy. parents don't want to complain and be seen as "problem parents" because it could affect your child's admission to private 9th grade. lots of mean discord chats and group text chains, one student takes other kids' photos from the online school directory without their permission and posts them in his chat as others make fun of the kid. my DC says this particular bullying student and his buddies then bother kids at school in person - teachers are too busy to care, bullying kids don't listen when the other kids tell them to stop. very disappointing and concerning.

Of course you won’t even name the school on an anonymous message board. You and your schools tell your kids to be upstanders but you won’t do it yourself. The school certainly won’t if it means crossing a rich/powerful parent or risking their rep or even making more work for admin.

But all the schools are warm and inclusive magical spaces full of exceptional students, right?

[Anonymous]

So terrible. Those parents who knew and did nothing (or worse, made it worse) as their kids participated in the exclusion and taunting are next level nightmares. Anyone who has had a child at our area private schools knows parents just like them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So terrible. Those parents who knew and did nothing (or worse, made it worse) as their kids participated in the exclusion and taunting are next level nightmares. Anyone who has had a child at our area private schools knows parents just like them.

What does your school do? What do you do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t know anything about that situation but I think they have a good case.

Our pk-12 private school also does very little for bullying, or about hyper & impulsive kids hurting others, or badmouthing.

Recipients of the bad behavior quickly learn that saying Stop does nothing, reporting to a teacher is met with gaslighting (“no, everyone’s a good kid”), and going to the principals office to straighten it out results in a lying He said /She said debacle plus retaliation.

These schools need to have zero tolerance of nasty behavior, especially when there’s a pattern of it. How many separate complaints do they need?!?

I cannot tell you how many times the last 6 mos I’ve run into other parents whose kids are suffering and need to change friends or plot down names they don’t want in next years homeroom.
Then I ask my kid what’s up or what happened and they confirm the 3-4 nightmare examples of bullying they have witnessed. When I say please tell a teacher they refuse. They say that makes everything worse. Sadly, they may be right. They are also in disbelief since they are in a school that touts its social justice, kindness, and inclusivity mantra. And silence to parents.

Schools respond this way because parents of the “bad” kids threaten litigation. I watched a parent threaten my principal with a lawsuit if his child was suspended for the mean things he did to another kid. This was the upteenth time the kid had been mean to others.

There are so many stories like this. Kids running around with scissors and teachers not being able to reach and administrator for help, child on child sexual assault occurring over multiple years. Parents on both sides threaten to sue or go to the media so the schools just throw their hands up and do nothing (other than force the teachers to remain silent about all of it). Private schools are in the business of keeping things private. So the highest bidder or the loudest mouth wins!

[Anonymous]

The parents of the bullies in this complaint are a55holes. What was up with Mark Solovy's wife picking on the kid - her NEIGHBOR - for being unvaccinated when he was actually vaccinated? What is up with a GROWn A55 WOMAN picking on and spreading rumors about a 15 year old kid??? This is what we talk about when we reference social engineering. Common sense would have said - "hey, son our neighbor just started at your school, why don't you include him in some activities and help him get adjusted?" But no, her and moms like her, relish their "specialness" as the mom of a kid who is in the "in' clique and they are so insecure and spineless, they won't do anything to jeopardize the exclusiveness of the clique (which jeopardizes the parents access to the "in" crowd), so they do nothing. Absolutely disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Look in the mirror folks. You won’t even name your school on this forum where absolutely no one knows who you are.

[Anonymous]

How awful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look in the mirror folks. You won’t even name your school on this forum where absolutely no one knows who you are.

A couple people narrowed it down to one of two schools quite well without naming them. Or pointed out the hypocritical mission vs bullying.

[Anonymous]

Tragic. Kids were horrible; Latin administrators dropped the ball. The mom must feel so anguished for applying out of Parker. Skeptical that the main reason for applying out was "in-person learning" at Latin. I wonder how Parker is addressing all this, assuming his sister returned. How can anyone recover from this, student or adult. Parents and middle schools need to explicitly teach group chat etiquette and kindness before kids get their own devices!