(NewsNation) — Parents and students in an embattled New Jersey school district unloaded at a board meeting Thursday night, lodging complaints that the administration allowed bullying to go unchecked for years.
Students past and present of Central Regional School District packed into the auditorium at Central Regional High School to share their stories.
“I’ve been bullied every single day since I’ve been at this school, since seventh grade,” student Milo Lugo said at the meeting.
It was the first time the board met since the death of Adriana Kuch, a 14-year-old who killed herself after she was bullied. A group of students attacked her in the hallway inside the high school, and the assault was posted online.
Four students were suspended and have been criminally charged. The school superintendent, Dr. Triantafillos Parlapanides, resigned, but not before he blamed Kuch’s suicide on her family, according to reporting by the New York Post.
Another student, Echo McNichols, was bullied so bad “I couldn’t bring myself to school.”
“I locked myself in my room and I begged not to go,” McNichols said at the meeting. “The school’s solution was for me to switch classes, to turn my schedule upside down in the middle of the year to get away from these kids, or to just suck it up.”
The school district has come under intense scrutiny since Kuch’s death and more reports of bullying have surfaced. One former student told NewsNation this week that the administration failed to effectively address bullying.
“They didn’t do anything,” Deryn Arnold said. “I tried to go to (the) guidance (counselor), they wouldn’t listen; they told me that I must be instigating if it hasn’t stopped. … The superintendent couldn’t have cared less.”
Parents at the board meeting pointed the finger at teachers, too.
“We have a problem with the teachers … just as much as we have with the kids being bullied by their classmates,” said parent Melissa Hickey.
“For months, years, we’ve been talking about the same thing with no results,” added parent Kelly Edwards.
The district previously said in a statement that it “is evaluating all current and past allegations of bullying.”
Acting Superintendent Dr. Douglas Corbett said at Thursday’s meeting that the district is reviewing its bullying policies, but noted they are are largely determined by the state.
“Those policies are dictated; they are very prescriptive by the state,” Corbett said. “However, we will review them, and if there’s any flexibility in any of that, we have to explore that. There’s no place in schools for bullying. We can all agree on that.”
Dr. Stuart Green, with the New Jersey Coalition for Bullying Awareness and Prevention, says bullying is an “institutional phenomenon” that schools have a responsibility to solve.
“It’s about the way the school functions,” Green said Friday on NewsNation’s “Rush Hour.” “The main thing parents can do is to have very high, strong expectations. Expect the school your kid is in to do better and do more.”
