Bullied Son Suicidal: Mother Sues School District For $300,000
There has been a lot of coverage on bullies who taunt emotionally and even physically harm other students, making attending school unbearable if not dangerous. Ashley Shupe has apparently had enough and is suing the Tennessee’s Dickson County School District, seeking $300,000 for what she says, according to court documents, amounted to “negligence and deliberate indifference” to her son’s educational rights, according to Yahoo Parenting. It’s gotten to the point that her son would rather commit suicide than face the bully.
According to Shupe, her son Kaiden Shupe experienced bullying when a second grader in 2013, being pushed and shoved by another student. Ashley Shupe wrote a letter to the boy’s teacher. She wrote another letter when she discovered that he was again being bullied. By then, Kaiden was isolating himself and was extremely depressed, even attempting to strangle himself, throw himself from a height, and stop eating, according to the Daily Mail.
Shupe last spring met with her son’s teacher, a guidance counselor, and the principal of Oakmont Elementary School, and indicated that she wanted the bully to have no contact with her son. Unfortunately, despite the school agreeing to keep the bully away from Kaiden, he allegedly still had contact at recess with Kaiden, injuring him with a basketball, bruising his face. Kaiden’s also had bruises and cuts on his body.
She has filed a police report. She has also notified the school that Kaiden has been diagnosed with clinical depression because of the bullying. Shupe said the following, according to Yahoo Parenting.
“The emotional and terrible abuse that this child [has endured] has affected him tremendously. I won’t send him back until I feel that he’s safe and protected.”
Shupe stated that, after speaking with FOX 17 WZTV Nashville, administrators made her son sit alone in the lunchroom, alluding to retaliation by the district. Although privacy laws prevent the district from discussing the specific case, the school director stated that every bullying report is investigated. Shupe and her attorney plan on meeting with district officials next week.
Too many students have been harmed by bullying. Perhaps this case will come to a resolution in the best interests of the child. In another recent death allegedly as a result of bullying, a student committed suicide. The death of 14-year-old Raymond Howell, Jr. was ruled a suicide. The McKinney Boyd High School, Texas, freshman’s body was found near a culvert beside busy Eldorado Parkway in McKinney. Friends and sources close to the family indicated that he had been bullied by older kids badly enough that he requested a transfer to another school, according to an article in the Inquisitr.
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