Example of a Possible Bullying Incident that Led to Suicide

           On this occasion I will discuss an online article regarding the suicide of Hailee Joy Lamberth, a 13 year old girl from the state of Nevada. The article is titled “Father: School received bullying report before daughter’s suicide” and can be found on the “reviewjournal.com”.

According to the article, Hailee Joy Lamberth committed suicide on December 12, 2013 and left a “farewell note” in which she mentioned that she had been bullying in school. Despite the aforementioned “farewell note,” school officials initially reported that Hailee had no bullying record. However, Hailee’s disciplinary file, which was recently requested by Hailee’s father, proves otherwise. According to Hailee’s disciplinary file, on November 21, 2013, an anonymous tip was submitted to the school district’s website in which someone reported that Hailee was being harassed. The school district’s policy requires school administrators to investigate the incident within 10 days and report their findings. According to Hailee’s father, “the incident was confirmed” and “the school’s administration told him the child was disciplined.”  However, now the school district will not confirm nor deny the incident because of federal student privacy laws. Currently Nevada law requires “principals to investigate all suspected incidents of bullying within 24 hours of receiving notice [… and] if bullying is found to have occurred, the principal must provide written notice to the parents.” According to Jason Lamberth, the father of Hailee, nobody in his family was contacted about any bullying issue.

The lack of adequate communication between school officials and parents is a key feature I noticed within this article. Although it is unknown if informing Hailee’s parents about her harassment report would have prevented Hailee’s suicide, I still believe it was wrong that Hailee’s parents were never informed about Hailee’s possible harassment incident. It is possible that by informing Hailee’s parents about the possible harassment, they would have been more attentive to Hailee. The fact that this window of opportunity for a possible intervention was completely taken away is undoubtedly an issue that should be addressed, especially since it is an easily amendable issue. Perhaps one feature school officials should try to implement is revising school policies regarding bullying by making it mandatory to immediately inform parents about bullying incidents, even if they are still being investigated and have not been completely confirmed. The aforementioned article demonstrates just how much little time is needed before disaster strikes. Perhaps school bullying policies should be revised in order to leave someone explicitly responsible for informing parents. In my opinion creating this role and sense of accountability will improve the lack of communication highlighted within the article analyzed within this blog.

            According to the article, current Nevada laws define bullying as “a willful act that ‘exposes a person repeatedly and over time to one or more negative actions which is highly offensive to a reasonable person’ and either physically or emotionally harms, threatens to harm, or exploits an imbalance in power.” It is uncertain whether Hailee’s case is an isolated case of error on behalf of the school district or if the incident met the state’s definition of bullying which would have required the parents to be notified. In either case, the Lamberth family feels that they should have been informed when Hailee was harassed, especially after Hailee’s death. Recently the superintendent of Hailee’s former school announced the creation a bullying task force to address the concerns of the Lamberth family.

            The normalization of bullying is a feature I also noticed within this incident. It seems as though the school is downplaying the incident as an isolated case that is very unlikely to occur once again. In my opinion every case not only should every case be taken seriously, they should also be studied in depth so that future incidents may be prevented. In addition, schools should be focusing on preventing bullying from occurring, not on helping families cope with the disastrous effects of bullying.

Workplace Bullying

Within this blog I will begin my analysis of an article titled “Workplace Bullying Often Goes Unpunished” which was published on “BusinessNewsDaily.com”. According to the article, a recent study conducted by the Workplace Bullying Institute, an organization dedicated to the “eradication of workplace bullying”, revealed that “27% of U.S. employees have been bullied at work,” which translates to roughly 37 million people.  In addition, the study revealed that “another 21% of workers have witnessed bullying.”

The aforementioned findings show how widespread the issue of bullying is in terms of the age groups affected by bullying. One would think that adults would be “mature” enough to avoid bullying. However, research proves that children and adolescents are not the only age groups affected by bullying. This brings up the following question: How can adults expect children and adolescents to behave properly by avoiding bullying, if they cannot avoid bullying themselves?

The study also revealed that “the majority of the people doing the bullying are in management positions.” In fact, according to the study, “more than 55% of those who were bullied said it came from their boss.” Another interesting finding is that the study found that “men are more than twice as likely as women to be bullies”. In addition, the study found that “57% of the bullying targets for men are females, and 68% of women bullies target females.”

The aforementioned statistics reveal an interesting correlation regarding bullies and bullying victims. Men have historically held positions of power in most societies. The study conducted by the Workplace Bullying Institute seems to reveal the transfer and preservation of this status quo onto the roles found within bullying. Within bullying men have managed to preserve their power, since they are more likely to be bullies, but not the victims of bullying. However, I believe that there is slight glimmer of hope. Within the past few years, schools have emphasized gender equality, especially the schools found within the U.S. As a result, it may be the case that within a few years, the gender inequality that exists in terms of bullying relationships will diminish. In addition, it would be interesting to compare how school age children statistics compare with the statistics of working adults, regarding the gender of bullies and victims of bullying.

Throwing Away School Lunches – A Form of School Bullying

According to a news article published by FoxNews.com, a New Jersey mother has accused her local elementary school, in Galloway Township, N.J., of bullying her 10 year old son. The mother claims that the school personnel has “repeatedly taken her child’s lunch and thrown it away.” The mother acknowledges that her son’s lunch account had “become delinquent” due to unpaid cafeteria balances, however, the mother attributes the situation on her son’s “occasional failure to relay notes and messages on the issue.” According to the article, the child suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome.  Recently, a similar incident occurred at Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah. According to the article school officials in Uintah Elementary School “replaced […] student’s $2 lunches with fruit and milk […] because of insufficient or negative balances.” The father of an 11 year old student whose lunch was taken away by Uintah school officials believes that “young children [should not] be punished or humiliated for something the parents […] need to clear up.” Similarly, the N.J. mother expressed her belief that the issue should remain “between the parents and the cafeteria […not] between the child and the lunch lady.” 

            This article reveals how arbitrary the definition of bullying can be. Some people would argue that school officials have no right to deprive children of their school lunches and in the process humiliate them. However, other individuals would argue that “rules are rules”, and as a result, school officials have the right to deny and deprive students of their school lunches if their parents fail to pay the school lunch balances. In my opinion this scenario is an excellent example of a bullying scenario that contradicts a common assumption. Usually school officials are thought as having students’ best interests in mind. However, this article is proof that the aforementioned assumption is not always the case. Is it really in the students’ best interests to deprive them of their school lunches over fees their parents have failed to pay? What lesson are students supposed to learn, pay or be humiliated?