The Massachusetts school district where a student committed suicide after being bullied had brought in a leading consultant, Barbara Coloroso, to give a seminar about prevention and reporting of bullying. Coloroso told the New York Times that the South Hadley, Ma., high school had not fully carried out her recommendations to ensure reporting of any potential bullying and to involve parents early on. "This was a horrible wakeup call," she said.
Dozens of parents had attended a school committee meeting and described a history of bullying at the school that many said had never been brought under control. Some parents questioned the effectiveness of the school’s internal investigation after Phoebe Prince’s death in January and what they described as a failure to discipline some of the offenders until criminal charges emerged this week. “They had eyewitnesses to the bullying that they never interviewed,” said one parent.
