11 YEAR OLD BOY COMMITS SUICIDE DUE TO SCHOOL BULLYING
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Posted By: Siebra Muhammad on April 11, 2009 ANOTHER REASON WHY WE MUST SAVE OUR CHILDREN... Two days after the worst day of her life, when she found her 11-year-old son had committed suicide by hanging himself, Sirdeaner L. Walker said on Wednesday she wants the bullying to stop. She found Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover hanging by an extension cord on the second floor of their 124 Northampton Ave. home Monday night after he had endured another day of taunting at New Leadership Charter School, where he was a sixth-grader, she said. "I just want to help some other child. I know there are other kids being picked on, and it's day in and day out," said Walker, 43. She spoke in her living room surrounded by family and friends. They had just returned from a church service. Photos of a beaming Carl - he played football, basketball and was a Boy Scout - peered from the top of the television. Walker went upstairs to check on him Monday night. "It was the worst experience of my life, and I'm a breast cancer survivor. Four years, it was four years ago I had breast cancer," Walker said. She phoned the school repeatedly since Carl began attending in September but the bullying continued, she said. Other students made him a target, daily calling him gay, making fun of how he dressed and threatening him, she said. Carl had attended Alfred M. Glickman Elementary School up to fifth grade, but few of his friends accompanied him to New Leadership Charter School, she said. On Monday, she said Carl told her that he accidentally hit a TV at the school with his backpack and the TV bumped into a girl, who shouted at him and threatened him with harm. He called his mother after school and said he had gotten a five-day suspension, she said. School officials denied the incident had prompted a five-day suspension, said Walker, who nonetheless remains upset at what she said was the school's pattern unresponsiveness. "I called there every week," she said. School officials told her they had decided that the mediation of Carl's dispute with the female student was to consist of the two students eating lunch together all week, she said. It belies the school's failure to address suffering wrought by bullying, she said. "If anything can come of this, it's that another child doesn't have to suffer like this and there can be some justice for some other child. I don't want any other parent to go through this," she said. Henry M. Thomas III, chairman of the school's board of directors, failed to return repeated calls seeking comment. Walker said she was upset with Thomas for failing to return her calls, as well. The New Leadership Charter School, 180 Ashland Ave., is offering grief counseling to students and staff in light of the death of a six-grader on Monday, according to the school's Web site. Go to spsnlcs.com and click on Login to Homework. Donations can be made to help the boy's family by contacting the school, the Web site said. "The NLCS family has suffered a major loss," said the Web site. Walker works as director homeless programs at the Massachusetts Career Develop Institute here. She will turn 44 on April 23, and she said she and Carl would joke of how their birthdays were so close, as he would have turned 12 on April 17, she said. According to the National Youth Violence Prevention Center, nearly one in three youth nationwide reported either being bullied, having bullied someone, or have done both. According to the center, one recent study of grades 6-10, showed as many as 13 percent reported bullying others, and 11 percent said they were victims of bullies. Victims of bullies become anxious, insecure and cautious, suffer low self-esteem and rarely defend themselves or retaliate. Often they feel isolated and withdrawn. The most common reason cited by youth for why someone is targeted for bullying is because the person does not fit in. The Center also notes there can be long-term effects for both the victim and perpetrator of bullying. Victims as adults suffer from depression and poor self-esteem, while 60 percent of bullies in grades 6-9 had at least one criminal conviction by age 24. The National School Safety Center defines bullying as physical confrontations and direct threats of violence, but also indirect forms such as rejection and exclusion, humiliation and name calling, manipulating friends, and more recently, hurtful messages sent by e-mail or posted on Web sites. If you enjoyed this article, Join HBCU CONNECT today for similar content and opportunities via email! |
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Siebra Muhammad
A Registration Clerk/Specialist, New Orleans Public Schools Other College... class of 2001 Member Since November 2008 |
Comments
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Sister Irma, I have worked in the New Orleans Public Schools since 2002 and due to a confidentially agreement I singed I'm not to speak ill of the system, but this is BIA, so the hell with it. These public school children (the majority of them) behave terribly. They have no manners, talk back, tease children, fight and curse teachers, smoke weed, gamble, have s*x out in the open, do every ungodly thing inside the schools, lie, steal, cheat, hate--they do everything. And some of this behavior is present in the Catholic schools also. And where is the leadership in the school? I've met several worthless principals who have not demonstrated leadership ability. Perhaps Springfield should emulate the new School Superintendent. The loss of our Brother Carl is a senseless tragedy. When will the administrators stop focusing on the standardized testing in public schools and focus on these Children? I mean all of the children. Not just the quiet ones, but the bullies too. Someone needs to call out these parents as well. And yes, there should be a manslaughter charge. Bullying has reached new heights since we came up. Sunday, April 12th 2009 at 1:11PM |
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Sister Irma and Brother Clark, I totally agree with you. I currently work as a student registration clerk, however at one point during my employment in the public school system I was recruited to work as a teacher assistant in a middle school for a year. There was a total of 30 students assigned to each class, and every month parent conferences were held. Can you believe that out of those 30 students that I worked with, only ONE parent showed up!!! ONE PARENT!!! I ask where are the other 29 parents, or should I say, the other 29 so-called parents. They will not come out to support the school, but let their child fail a grade or get suspended/expelled, and you can swear on a stack of Bibles that there will be chaos. There was a student who misbehaved in the classroom every day, I attempted to break up as fight and this child bit me on my wrist. It took all of my God-given power not to whip his a** that day (LOL). All along we complained to the parent and the principal that his behavior will not be tolerated. We even went as far as setting up a video camera in class to tape his behavior, the parent still denied it and called us everything but a child of God. (And keep in mind that she's a school security guard!!) Brothers and Sisters, education as we know it will not change unless of course the parents/guardians step up to the plate and do their part. If you show a teacher and principal a parent who really cares, they will show you a child who can learn. Monday, April 13th 2009 at 12:00PM |
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Brother Clark, you are on it!!! It is the parent’s job to make sure their child comes to school in the right frame of mind. Parents are altogether different from what they were back then. Where I come from, if a neighbor saw you doing something out of order, that neighbor had permission to discipline you. Nowadays, if you discipline a child that is not yours, you can expect the cops coming to your house accusing you of disturbing the peace (this happened in my neighboorhood once and the parties had to go to court because of it). It's no longer about taking a village to raise a child. The parents making these children are no more than kids themselves.
Monday, April 13th 2009 at 2:44PM |
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Sorry but I am still stuck on "ICALLED THE SCHOOL"! Lets see did she call the doctor when she was in trouble or did she go to the doctor...oh and did she get follow up on her problem...? As a mother, I am ashamed of this kind of adult behavior!!!! Why is the school blamed for something that was so unimportant to this child's mother!!!!!And, this is the mother in me as well as the friend and a member who gets involved with this kind of un wanted, unnecessary school behavior in my community!!!!This is child endangerment and neglect by all directly involved in this matter, period. Sotp with the excuses already,end of story!!!!!! Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM |
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This will only STOP when the parents, the community, the voters stop projecting what they are to blame for what is going on in their community, their schools, their homes. They must start asking themselves why do they vote these people into office and then continue to help these people DO/ not do the very jobs that they"PAY" time to do?for example, Responsible people do what this mother did. She went to the principal's office and started out with, "I am coming to you to talk with you as your employer"...WAKE UP!!!!!! Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM |
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Here is the talk among those of us who remember going to Black only schools...we did not have a chance to try and imitate the behaviors of the White children...We had no rights to sass the teacher or any other adult. But, then our parents and the 'adults' were busy putting in an honest days work and not taking:drugs, selling drugs and helping the White man to turn us against churches like that of Rev. J. Wright nor the teachings of the NOI to be proud of being black by showing how you will not:smoke, put drugs into you body, foods that will do more damage to the Black family and community that even slavery could not do. And, this was turn the Black man against his own mother!!!! We had better join our politicians in D.C. trying to prove that it was the US government agency itself that first introduced crank cocaine into East LA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! there is a famous quote that goes like this,"I saw the enemy and it was US"!!!!!! WAKE UP....... Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM |
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