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After watching that whole video, I would hate to be a school administrator making any decision about exactly what happened based only on the video.
What does occur to me is that if the parents are saying that there was inadequate supervision at school, then I would have to say there was also inadequate supervision in the home.
There is so much more to this story that I assume we will never know.
I was thinking the same thing, but after watching the video, I really question what the "bully?" did to the other kid to make him pass out cold like that? A shove shouldn't have caused this. Maybe the boy had a medical condition that no one knew of?
IF it was intentional, the beast who did whatever he did, should be hung out to dry. I can't even think of a (legal) punishment harsh enough for bullies.
I just wish the poor kid who hung himself has some older brothers or cousins who will give the kid some of his own medicine see how it feels to be bullied.
The thing I can't get over is that over 4 minutes went by in the video before an adult showed up. Obviously, no one was in any hurry to tell a teacher or the teachers didn't take the kids seriously.
Sherlock Holmes-ing the video which I paused and watched intently. I deduced that the bully has this shock gag:
I myself don't want to try it when I saw it in a store coz I don't fancy getting electrocuted. So ya, I agree, the poor kid may have a medical condition.
The difficult thing with any of these school-related incidents is that we are only skimming the surface on information. All the information is provided by the parents and the media who are not bound by confidentiality. The detective's comment seems a little unprofessional on top of that.
As an administrator, I investigate a lot of "incidents" throughout the day. I keep an open mind until all the facts are in and try not to jump to conclusions. It seems as if the school incident is related to the suicide, but has that been proven? The suicide happened at home under the supervision of the parents. Is there abuse at home that would have played a factor and someone is looking for a scapegoat? There is no mention of a note left by the child, so we are guessing as to all the factors leading up the suicide.
At this point, all we know is that a tragedy has occurred. The easy way out is finding a scapegoat and then making ridiculous comments about what we would do to those "responsible" for this.
Administrators do not view cameras at all times and have many cameras that cover a school. Even finding an incident on a camera can take quite a bit of time and most of the time you only get a partial image or a blurry one at best. My guess is that someone found the student unconscious and assumed it was medical. When the administrator first heard about it, they probably heard someone had passed out, but someone was taking him to the nurse and the nurse had called the parent. Therefore, I'm assuming the administrator did not investigate this as a disciplinary issue.
The school recommended that the parent take the child to the hospital. It seems the parent disregarded this advice and just took him home. The child reported that his stomach hurt and he didn't know what happened. If a student told the school he didn't know what happened, his stomach hurt, and the first report from someone is that he "fainted", then I can see how an administrator would see this as a medical issue rather than disciplinary. The hospital reported that he was suffering from the stomach flu, not an attack from fellow students or bullying. I would assume this is after interviewing the child. These are medical professionals that would be better trained in suicide prevention than school personnel.
If school staff believe a student has suicidal tendencies, however small, they turn this over to medical professionals. I know that we require a doctor to release that student back to us after a psychological evaluation.
In my opinion, the school failed to identify this as a physical attack rather than a medical issue. However, I would hold the school, the parents, and the hospital all responsible for this suicide. The parents sent the child to school again 2 days after the restroom incident and the child was under their care when he committed this act. They also failed to take the child to the hospital immediately as recommended by school staff or identify suicidal tendencies in their child. The hospital released a child with suicidal tendencies to return back to school and failed to identify the attack, diagnosing the main issue as the stomach flu. The school failed to identify this as a disciplinary issue rather than medical and, it seems, failed to identify suicidal tendencies in this child.
My guess is that the child suffers from some kind of mental health issue in addition, which makes these cases very difficult. Unfortunately, many people dropped the ball in this kid's life and that is hard to face. It's easier to set up a scarecrow to fight and a common one is public education.
Another minor issue is the restroom at a school. Parents want their kids to go to the restroom any time they wish. However, restrooms are one of the few completely unsupervised areas. There are stories of mean teachers restricting restroom usage that are reported all the time in the news. So you can restrict restroom usage and increase safety or allow free reign to the restroom and have a completely unsafe area for students. You can't have both and schools don't have the funds to staff a monitor at each restroom the whole school day. Schools are stuck between a rock and a hard place with restroom use.
It's been a long time since I was this age, but I remember in the 70s you raised your hand and asked to use the restroom, you got a hall pass, and you went, and came back. If you were gone an unusually long time someone came looking for you.
This incident went on for several minutes, where was the staff?
Quote:
Originally Posted by CGab
8 years old....truly heartbreaking!
I wonder if the school had an anti-bullying program? My daughter is in 3rd grade and her school is very proactive about this! It's basically zero tolerance in the school district. With that said, I wonder why the child did not reach out to his parents for help?
The school clearly downplayed and lied about what happened. They do need to be held responsible along with the kids who hurt him. Children need to feel safe at school. If I was the child's parent I would also bring charges up against the kids parents. At 8 years of age they should know better then to hurt another human. Obviously this type of behavior is due to parents that are not teaching their children that this type of behavior is not acceptable. VERY SAD!!
Very sad, heartbreaking.
Agree, after reading the article that's exactly what the school is doing.
It's been a long time since I was this age, but I remember in the 70s you raised your hand and asked to use the restroom, you got a hall pass, and you went, and came back. If you were gone an unusually long time someone came looking for you.
This incident went on for several minutes, where was the staff?
Very sad, heartbreaking.
Agree, after reading the article that's exactly what the school is doing.
It looked to me as if maybe it was between classes or a classroom break (which I have seen in some schools).
They tried to hide it, also CPS still hasnt made a statement on the issue. I mean how can they? What could they possibly say!
I thought they tried to hide it at first. I'm not sure that the video supports that, however.
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