I don't know whether to cry or puke...

Good thing there wasn't a Seattle cop present. That kid would have five bullets in him.

I just emailed this to the board of trustees:

To Whom It May Concern:

I am distraught over the news of the suicide of Asher Brown, a student from your district who decided he would be better off dead than to endure more of the harassment and bullying that he faced going to school every day. For how long did Asher suffer? What did the school administration do about it? Apparently, very little. How many other students like Asher will be subjected to this hateful, homophobic violence before someone steps up and says "enough"?

I am not a member of your community, and you may feel that you don't owe me any explanations. You do, however, have an obligation to your students. It is your job to protect them in loco parentis. When a student is being targeted for being gay (or fat, or artistic, or just different), regardless of what you may think of homosexuality, you must intervene. It is your responsibility to provide a safe, healthy learning environment for all your students. So I am asking you: what is the Cy-Fair Independent School District going to do to punish the students who bullied Asher to death? What are you going to do to prevent more kids from winding up like Asher?

Respectfully,

...
Brooklyn, NY

Here's what has me up at night: as a parent, am I going to be able to recognize if my kids are getting bullied or do they bottle it up inside until they can't handle it anymore. My kids will know it's fine to be gay (both their dads are), but on other issues, what do I watch for? This rash of gay-teen suicides (or at least the increase in reporting them) has me just sick for these poor kids, their families and scared for my own little ones.

This bullshit reminds me of how a school district I once lived in brought the hurt down on my brother because he gave a teacher the middle finger behind her back (so she didn't actually see it, but someone tattled on him) but wouldn't do anything about me being seriously sexually harassed because it was just a "he said she said" situation or something. Obviously not as a big deal as being bullied to death, but everywhere I've gone (and I've lived all over the US) school administrators have had seriously fucked up priorities.

isn't it about time for a national group to organize where kids and their parents can call for help to put an end to systematic bullying? And not just gay kids...fat kids, disabled kids, ethnic kids...anyone who is bullied on a day to day basis by peers, and frequently, teachers and adults as well...Dan's project is awesome, but how about some action to end the bullying and to punish those who bully and provide support to those being abused.

Not to detract or distract...are ya perhaps missing a, "was," in that first sentence, Dan? XOXO

I have a cousin in that school district. All the emails and Facebook groups in the world won't get them to change. The way they see it, if you're not a white protestant texan you can kiss their ass.

That not every bullied kid has a video specifically aimed towards them is no reason to deride the project. I bet many of the kids that get bullied are taunted with homophobic comments, even if they aren't gay. In middle school there are probably kids who decide they must be gay because everyone calls them a faggot, and, whether or not they even have a clue about whom they are attracted to.
And the depth of hatred aimed at gay kids does seem to be nastier than the horrible "run of the mill" bullying suffered by fat and non athletic kids.

Uhh, if we don't bully the weak and different at school, how will they, and more importantly all those others who watch their treatment, learn to accept and to adapt to the fear-based hierarchies that will run the rest of their lives thereafter?

I mean, early education is important.

(Yes, it does get better for most of us, but still not good enough by half.)

It will do no good to complain to the school adminstration about bullying by kids, it's obvious they will do nothing BUT, the local police will pay attention to someone filing assault charges. Even if they don't stick, the school will take notice because if something happens to the kid- the assault is on record and school can be held responsible.

BTW the zero tolerance policy apparently means 0 tolerance for "threatening" teachers. They don't give a shit about kids, gay or otherwise.

Talking to the school administrators will do no good. They've made it quite clear that they're not concerned about the bullying and believe that there were other factors involved. In a public statement expressing "sadness", school officials said, "Although the investigation is not completed, the initial findings indicate that Asher’s personal and family histories were very complicated."

See: http://www.kvue.com/news/state/Parents-1…

That's pretty damned unprofessional of school officials to use a public statement to blame the victim and his parents.

@4 You"ll know, I'd think; we did. And as evidenced by a lot of these posts, they talk about parents who complained about bullying, to no avail. So, most parents know. They may not know exactly how bad it is, but you know your kids, and you know when something's wrong. It's the same thing you read in parenting books: Keep talking to them. Don't react with judgment or shock when they tell you things, or they'll shut down. If you live in a progressive area, that's half the battle, but no matter where you are, other kids can be jerks. And when they're young, volunteer in their school. Just hanging out there, you can see how your kid interacts with the other kids.

"Although the investigation is not completed, the initial findings indicate that Asher’s personal and family histories were very complicated."

Yeah, complicated. Seems like maybe he was both a nice kid AND a faggot, and that his parents were inexplicably raising him with twisted and sick values that it is okay to be yourself.

How can we expect a school to wade into a nebulous morass like that?

Oh, I know, how about, "It doesn't matter a damn WHY the kids are harassing and assaulting another kid. Just stop it."

Middle school administrations widely seem to be pretty fucked-up. I grew up in a super-progressive suburb with a heavy focus on education quality. Yet my middle school administration was still pretty uncomfortable with non-gender-normative behaviors. I had a few (male) friends who were suspended for wearing lipstick and nail polish; the justification was that they were being "disruptive", though it was, of course, the REACTIONS to them that were disruptive. When their (lawyer) parents threatened to sue for sex-based discrimination, THE SCHOOL BANNED ALL NAIL POLISH AND LIPSTICK for two weeks, before realizing how absurd the policy was (the students ignored it, meaning they would have had to suspend nearly the entire female and a small portion of the male populations) and relenting.

I had another (male) friend who was suspended for wearing a dress; the lawsuit-threat in response to that resulted in a reversal of the suspension and a formal apology issued to the student by the principle (part of me wishes that they had gone forward with the suits and gotten the principle fired, as she apparently never learned her lesson).

I think perhaps school administrators view the beginning development of an adult sense of agency at middle through high school as extremely threatening, and view those who exercise that new-found agency by transgressing social norms as all-the-more threatening, since the fact that they cannot be contained by social normative forces does not bode well for their control by the administrator(s). Hence, they punish the "different" kids and may even defend the bullies.

I'm a former middle school teacher.

My heart goes out so much to these children who are being bullied. However, I never received any training in "bullying intervention programs." In other words, I didn't know what to do when a kid came to me and told me someone had picked on him or her if I didn't see it and if nobody else was talking.

As a teacher, my punishment options were incredibly ineffective. I could only give detentions during lunch time. I could not send a student to the administration unless I witnessed violence or foul language. When I did witness it, you bet I reported it straight away, but the administration rarely doled out any consequences due to a fear of parents suing the school.

Please, help the first line of contact. Help teachers more by telling us how we can help these students who are coming to us with these stories and we have only the poor kids' word against someone else and no support from administration. Tell me what I could have done better. It would help me sleep better at night. Seriously.

@17: My middle school banned all boys from wearing pink. (Girls were not restricted.) This was for a full year or two. Fuck middle school.

@17: Your last paragraph was very insightful. Viewing my own school experience as a "different" kid in this light, it makes a lot of sense.

I would further posit that a lot of the other kids at school recognize and emulate the administrators' response of punishing kids who have the "audacity" of being different.

And yes, they should definitely punish the kids whose reactions are disruptive, not the kid who came to class dressed unusually. This would both enforce an orderly classroom atmosphere and teach the important lesson that (as many parents have told their children) "it's not polite to point fingers"--i.e., it's rude to call attention to somebody who's "different".