Media Coverage

Daily Record
Oct 31, 2007

'No tolerance' policy is needed

To the Editor:

On Oct. 9, a 15-year-old boy from Oak Ridge went into his garage and hanged himself. Since then, a 7-year-old from Vineland hanged himself in a bedroom.

Both of these untimely deaths are so sad and so senseless. Each year, 31,000 people commit suicide in the United States. While each quickly becomes just a statistic, it is important to remember that each death represents a person, with a life and family and enough hopelessness to feel that death was the only way to make the pain stop. In these two cases, these were children who had their entire lives ahead of them but only saw black despair.

In the first case, there was evidence the boy was being bullied.

First of all, the adage that "kids will be kids" has no merit when it comes to bullying. No adult should ever dismiss bullying as an acceptable or inevitable part of growing up. Each episode of bullying is an individual and damaging episode of abuse that should not be tolerated -- ever. That said, all schools and organizations should have a "No Tolerance" policy that is strictly enforced without fear of repercussions.

Bus drivers should be given the authority to evict a student from the bus if he or she is found to be a repeat bullier.

And children should be encouraged to report a bully even when they are just witnesses, because telling a grownup about a bully is not tattling, it's defending.

Mary Vineis
Prevention Coordinator
NewBridge
Pompton Plains