School Will Pay $9.1 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over a Student’s Suicide

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A New Jersey school district has agreed to pay $9.1 million to the parents of a sixth grader who died by suicide in 2017, ending a lawsuit that accused administrators of failing to take bullying complaints seriously.

Dianne and Seth Grossman sued following the death of their daughter, Mallory, during her first year at Copeland Middle School in Rockaway Township. Mallory had been repeatedly bullied by other students in text and Snapchat messages, and although administrators were routinely contacted about the bullying, the school did not do enough to respond, according to the lawsuit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/nyregion/new-jersey-student-suicide-settlement.html
 
"In one instance, the school asked Mallory and her bullies to “hug each other,” according to the lawsuit. When she was bullied at lunch, she was directed to eat in a counselor’s office.

“There is this attack on the victim to ‘suck it up,’” Ms. Grossman said at the time. “I knew they weren’t taking it seriously.”
 
My son was getting bullied by two boys in the 3rd grade . I tried to get them moved to a different classroom. The principle refused. The teacher and the principal both said they would stop it. The bullying continued. I spoke with both boys parents. They said it would stop. The bullying continued. So I enrolled my son in taekwondo and made sure my son was there as much as possible and I worked with him at home a lot.. 3-4 months later he had developed some fighting skills. Then I told him the next time the smaller of the two kids bullied him to take the kid down and I would TRY to keep the school from punishing him but there were no guarantees I could do it. But he would not be in trouble with me. A few days later I got a call that my son had been in a fight. The principal told me my son was going to get punished. I told her no he wasn't because SHE and his TEACHER had both failed to stop the bullying. I also told her that if she tried to punish him that I would get a restraining order to temporarily stop it then sue the school and her personally. She then put the bully with a black eye and my unscratched son into peer to peer mediation . The mediation councilor liked my son and disliked the bully. So basically the bully had to apologize and agree to not try to bully my son again. My son had to say if he wasn't bullied he would not hit him again.:laugh: The other bully was bigger but the smaller bully egged him on so he didn't bully either after that. Problem solved. Oh and the next Taekwondo class guess who showed up? The smaller bully. He never came back. My son stayed in Taekwondo until he got a black belt and now he takes Brazilian jiu-jitsu with his son.:laugh:
 
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