Monday, April 12, 2010

They Knew, And Did Next To Nothing

It all could have been avoided, if only someone had paid attention, and someone had done something about it.

It seems that Phoebe Prince, the Massachusetts high school student, who took her own life after being relentlessly bullied by a group of "Mean Girls," apparently spoke to a school administrator about the abuse she suffered just a week before she killed herself.

New documents have been filed in connection with other charges facing the six South Hadley High School students who literally bullied and tortured Phoebe Prince to death. The new documents show just how much school officials knew about the bullying, and reveal just what happened in the last few hours of Phoebe Prince's all-too-short life.

It was on January 14th that Phoebe Prince hanged herself in family home, a week to the day since she had gone to a school administrator after learning that one of the defendants, Flannery Mullins, had told fellow students that she was going to "beat Phoebe up" and that she "needed to watch out at break after second block. There is no indication to whom Phoebe spoke, but it is clear that she was begging for help.

Help never came.

Phoebe told the school official that she was "scared and wanted to go home," but, instead, she was sent back to class, telling a friend that it seemed as though "she was still going to get beat up."

School superintendent Gus Sayer said school administrators were not aware of the bullying until January 7, when two teachers reported separate bullying incidents to the principal. In one incident, a student walked into Prince's classroom and yelled at her; in the other, a teacher overheard several students making remarks about Prince "that appeared to be threatening."

A week before she killed herself school officials knew these things.

The principal says he took immediate "disciplinary action against both students," though, citing school privacy rules, he won't say what action was taken. But it couldn't have meant much to those that were torturing Phoebe Prince, because the bullying intensified over the course of the next seven days, until, no longer able to stand it, feeling that everyone was out to hurt her, seeing that officials wouldn't offer any help, Phoebe Prince gave up.

On her last day, Phoebe Prince told a friend that that school "has been close to intolerable lately." She was in the school library at the same time as three of the charged teens--Sean Mulveyhill, Kayla Narey and Ashley Longe--and witnesses reported that that Prince was subjected to crude sexual taunts from Longe, including, "Irish whore." As she left school that day, she endured a barrage of name-calling, and, while walking home, a car drove past, and a beverage can was thrown at her. By this time, Phoebe Prince was in tears. At home, she exchanged several text messages with a friend for about two hours, talking about the verbal abuse she had received that day and the ongoing taunts.

Later, Phoebe Prince's body was found hanging in a rear stairwell of her family's apartment.

So, where were the school officials? Why, when one teacher overhears a conversation in which a group of students threatens another, is nothing done? For a full week, they knew that Phoebe Prince had been targeted by a band of thugs, and they waited. For what?

Kids can be mean. There are names called, and shoves in the hallways; cruel tricks. But this went too far; this was a daily struggle for Phoebe Prince, and when she went to the very people she thought could help her, they let her down.

5 comments:

  1. This happened, ten years ago, in the twins' middle school. I've been thinking over this for a long time. The twins had 450 kids in their 8th grade class. Teachers here have 125 kids a day under their care. Bigger schools, different states it could be up to 150 to almost 200. We have got to change the culture that allows such huge amounts of kids to so few, relatively, adults. We need much smaller schools, we need to put 6th graders back in elementary school and we need more time for teachers to interact with kids. These bullies came into the system and we have to deal with them - we need the time and resources to try and cope.

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  2. Lay it on Bob!

    As you know, you and I are deeply aligned on this issue. Bullying of all kinds needs to stop now!

    http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/kids/

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  3. I am angry at reading this. I am hoping that thr=ere is some justice from the Administration to the group who bullied her.

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  4. Anonymous2:49 PM

    Its Phoebe Prince***
    Not Price.
    Jussayin..

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  5. This makes me so sick to my stomach... I don't care if she was a bitch, a whore, an idiot, annoying..she didn't deserve to go through this. No one does. If she was bothering the other kids first they should have said something to a teacher or administrator (obviously that might not have done much but still better than retaliation). I think oftentimes these things start out with 1 person or a small group of people who are angry and negative and they manage to manipulate and influence other, more weak-minded individuals. People have this terrible way of getting into mob mentalities...why couldn't 1 person have said stop? 1 kid, 1 teacher, 1 parent...this is awful.

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