By Paul Milo
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
ROCKAWAY TOWNSHIP — The family of Mallory Grossman, a 12-year-old who committed suicide in June, is suing the township’s public schools for failing to prevent the cyberbullying her parents are convinced led to her death, the family’s attorney said.
Mallory Grossman (via GoFundMe) https://www.gofundme.com/memorial-for-mallorey
In a statement, the law firm Nagel Rice of Roseland said the district was guilty of “gross negligence” for doing nothing to halt the text messages and Snapchat posts from fellow students at Copeland Middle School despite repeated requests from her parents asking school officials to intervene.
“This tragedy could have been prevented and this lawsuit should be a wake-up call to every school in every hamlet in our great country that cyberbullying is going on every day and that the schools must immediately take steps to stop this and protect every student in the school,” said attorney Bruce Nagel, who is representing the Grossmans.
https://www.nj.com/morris/index.ssf/2017/07/family_of_12-year-old_who_killed_herself_to_sue_sc.html
and so it begins…
Surprised it took this long.
This is the problem with the schools setting themselves up as pseudo-parents to the students outside of school hours. All of the policies, rules and regulations regarding behavior when the student is off-campus just opens up the schools to be sued when harm comes to the student when they are off campus.
This child taking her life is a very sad tragedy, but the schools should not be responsible since the tragedy happened off-campus. Unfortunately the schools have willingly placed themselves in the position of responsibility (at least in part) for student’s off-campus behavior by implementing discipline (and other) policies for student’s off campus behavior (including “bullying”).
Question #1 will be why the parents didn’t simply turn off the phone.
Question #2 will be why they didn’t remove the Snap Chat app.
Question #3 will be why they didn’t sue the parents of the bullies. (I know that answer, they don’t have deep pockets)
Wait they want me to fund their get rich quick scheme? Do I get a cut if they win their suit? There are companies that invest in lawsuits. Use them not begging online to fund your litigation against the tax payers.
This is a heartbreaking story and it has a connection to most families. Our school administrators cannot turn their backs to reported abuse, regardless of type, especially when it has a connection to the school itself. The silver lining here is that it may shed a brighter light on what should be done when a situation like this arises. We should always be mindful of the saying “but for the grace of God go thee” as this apparent neglect could affect each of our families one day.
The second most saddest element is how this repeatedly escalates into causing the loss of a young child or teen.Its likely happening right now in some useless chat room or clique.we have to fight this at every level and leave no tools unused to save these kids from each other.
9:05: The schools did not set themselves up or willingly place themselves in the position of responsibility. The anti-bullying laws and regulations were enacted on the state level.
why is there a gofundme page?
Growing up is hard enough Parents …There are Tigers out there in the bushes and our job is to adjust our field of vision to intervene when something is not right with our kids..also means having technical access to our younger Children’s and yes Teens Phones and devises , where this terrorism is occuring right now to some bullying clique victim who is someone’s suffering and loving child.
7.06. please stop…ground is not yet settled atop that child…
But why is there a go fund me page?