We have lost another one... Brandon Bitner was harassed and bullied at school. Then last week, he ran out in front of a truck and killed himself.
Here's more:
Freshman Brandon Bitner, 14, of Mount Pleasant Mills, ran in front of the truck at 3 a.m. near Liverpool, according to state police at Newport.No more! Schools start reach out to the students! Stop this, please!
The boy’s family discovered him missing at 3:45 a.m., and contacted police.
The road was closed for about three hours after the crash.
There seems to be little doubt in the students’ minds why Bitner did what he did.
“It was because of bullying,” friend Takara Jo Folk wrote in a letter to The Daily Item.
“It was not about race, or gender, but they bullied him for his sexual preferences and the way he dressed. Which,” she said, “they wrongly accused him of.”
His death came just days after an anti-bullying assembly at the high school, which, according to district Superintendent Wesley Knapp, was not held in response to any specific problems at the school, but because it is an issue Principal Cynthia Hutchinson has always felt strongly about.
After the assembly, according to student Briana Boyer in another letter to The Daily Item, “No one took it seriously, and joked around about it.”
Former Midd-West student Erin Barnett sent a letter as well, blaming the school, saying that when students report bullying, “Nothing is done.”
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3 comments:
Schools have to tell the teachers and staff to watch for bullying and report it themselves. Schools should not rely on students to report it. Many will not. When I was bullied, the very last thing I wanted to do was tell the school authorities. That would have been even more humiliating than the bullying. I'm sure some/many students feel as I once did. When teachers see it, they need to report it!
I've seen this during my decades of teaching. More teens commit suicide after others have done it. This sort of becomes an epidemic, as odd as this sounds. Along with counteracting bullying, they need to discuss suicide and how it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Yes, we have to use expressions like that with them.
Everything is so dramatic with teenagers. When I taught 9th grade, I took the opportunity to discuss suicide when we studied Romeo and Juliet. We've all had in-services on this, too.
What I'm saying is that there are two problems to deal with - bullying and suicide. I never tolerated bullying in my classes and confronted it head-on when I saw it or heard about it. I'd talk to the one being bullied about how to handle it and everything I could think of and try to get more help. I'd also confront the bully and turn him in to guidance and the principal's office. This was before there were programs in place to deal with it all. Now they have plans and designated help.
This is terribly heartbreaking. They can't see their way out of it.
I would like to have commented but there is a size restriction that made it impossible to articulate what I wanted to say.
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