Bullying Settlement Should Be a Wake-up Call for Educators

The parents of Mallory Grossman, a 12-year-old girl who died by suicide in 2017 after being bullied at Copeland Middle School in the Rockaway Township School District in New Jersey, reached a $9.1 million settlement with the district over its failure to do its part in stopping the bullying. This case should be a wake-up call for every school and district administrator who believes that state laws, reporting requirements, and a published bullying prevention policy are enough to shield them from negligence and culpability findings in court. As many bullying prevention educators and researchers have noted, these laws and requirements are generally not effective at preventing and resolving individual bullying issues. I have long been frustrated and heartbroken by the stories of students and parents who do their part in trying to work with schools to resolve a bullying problem and are met with an ineffective response, most especially those that result in tragedy. The case of Terry Badger III, a 13-year-old boy from Indiana who died by suicide this past March as a result of a bullying campaign that his school apparently failed to stop, appears to be a prime example. If you are an administrator whose bullying prevention and resolution tools are limited to actions to satisfy state laws, a reporting policy, punitive consequences, restorative justice, “teaching kindness,” and feel-good symbols such as bullying prevention posters and rubber bracelets, you aren’t doing enough to help the students in your care or to mitigate liability risk.