Dive Brief:
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A New Jersey school district will pay $9.1 million to the parents of a 12-year-old student who took her own life after being bullied in 2017, including cyberbullying via Snapchat, according to reporting from NJ Patch.
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The suit, originally filed in 2018 against Rockaway Township School District and other defendants, claimed that student Mallory Grossman's death was a result of "ongoing and systemic bullying," including cyberbullying via cellphones. Grossman's parents claimed education officials failed their duty to prevent the incidents.
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The case is one of many other bullying negligence suits against school districts in the past decade. Grossman's case also comes as educators note a rise in student misbehavior following the pandemic.
Dive Insight:
Earlier this year, a Connecticut town reached a $5 million settlement with a family whose son was a high school freshman in 2013 when he took his own life. In that suit, the parents alleged that the school district failed to investigate and discipline incidents of bullying.
Last September, California's El Segundo Unified School District also agreed to pay $1 million after it was found to have been negligent in protecting a former middle school student. Just months after that settlement, a Utah family filed a lawsuit with similar allegations against Davis School District.
Prior to the pandemic, in 2019, about 1 in 4 students between the ages of 12 and 18 reported being bullied at school during the school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That was slightly lower than 10 years prior, when the share of students reporting being bullied was 28%.
During school shutdowns triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, both bullying and cyberbullying declined by 30-40%, according to research from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. It also suggested that the pandemic reduced suicidal ideation.
Additional research from the 2020-21 school year released by NCES showed that bullying decreased in that time period.
Bullying, however, partially rose to pre-pandemic levels with the reopening of buildings, the Annenberg Institute's research showed.
Educators have also noted an increase in behavioral concerns among students since the return to in-person learning. Schools reported increased classroom disruptions as well as rowdiness outside of the classroom, among other kinds of misbehavior, according to data released by the NCES in July 2022.
As educators noted increased challenges in student behavior and mental wellness, they voiced a need for additional resources to address these concerns. A survey released by NCES in May 2022 corroborated this finding, with 88% of public schools saying they do not strongly agree that they could effectively provide mental health services to all students in need.
Despite this, educators have continued to stress bullying prevention and response in recent years. This could include:
- Creating a physically and emotionally safe environment.
- Schoolwide expectations for behavior.
- In-depth investigative procedures for bullying or even unkind incidents on and off campus.
- Creating trust and positive relationships between administrators, staff, parents and students.
- Adopting positive behavioral interventions and supports, including rewarding people for meeting positive behavior expectations.
In the New Jersey case, the Grossman family's advocacy also led to a state law passed in 2022 that requires school districts to include consequences for bullying or harassment in their policies. The law also requires superintendents to provide their boards with bullying data.
In response to the $9 million settlement, the family also called for school districts to ban cellphones on school grounds during school hours and activities. "No student needs a cell phone at school- for any reason," said a Facebook post for Mallory's Army, which was launched by Mallory's parents to advocate for anti-bullying measures. "Get rid of them."
Schools, meanwhile, are suing social media companies like Snapchat, among others, for their alleged negative impact on teen mental health.
