Reply to Private School suicide and cyber bullying lawsuit

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Private School suicide and cyber bullying lawsuit - Latin School of Chicago "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=juanjunoz][quote=Anonymous]Why keeps schools from creating rules about this stuff? Is it a legal issue?

When I was in school our behavior off-campus and after school was considered within the jurisdiction of school rules for certain things. Why not this?[/quote]

This particular case is in Chicago and I don't know what the Illinois laws are, but in Maryland, legally, public and private schools are responsible for addressing incidents of cyberbullying, which is off-campus behavior. Grace's Law was written for a reason--cyberbullying kills. You can't say, "Oh in my day we didn't get all worked up..." No, cyberbullying didn't exist then. There's something about the degree to which electronic communication is intertwined into kids' lives and psyches that makes online harassment very dangerous.

I find it disturbing how many people on here are blaming the victim, citing his supposed lack of social skills. I think this must be a defense mechanism to make people feel like this couldn't happen to their kids. It could. Kids with great social skills get targeted as well. And they also kill themselves.

You'd think, in this day and age, professional educators would be aware of the seriousness of this, given that it's been written into the law and it is their responsibility in many states, but shockingly that is more often not the case. Even high priced private schools are gaslighting and downplaying the issue--even after a student has KILLED himself! You see the school's response, right? The school STILL doesn't get it and is trying to distance themselves from any responsibility. Losing their students isn't enough. Without lawsuits like this, how will schools ever learn to start to take this seriously?

So my PSA is for all parents to take even a single act of cyberbullying very, very seriously. If your child is being harassed online, make as much noise about it as possible. Show the school the contents of the cyber bullying laws in your state. You will be met with resistance, possibly even ridicule, but it could prevent a tragedy. Even if your child 100% could never be in danger, raising the alarm, making a big deal about it, could raise awareness and maybe save someone else's child down the line.[/quote]

Thank you.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics