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In South Hadley, the town torn apart by a teen's suicide following bullying at the local high school, emotions erupted at the local school board meeting Wednesday night.
Police officers had to stop a fiery exchange between school board members and parents and escort several parents out of the meeting at the request of the board chairman.
Throughout the packed meeting Chairman Edward J. Boisselle banged the gavel and tried to quiet the crowd of about 100 parents who said they're won't stand silently by any longer, as they believe too many did, when Phoebe Prince, 15, was bullied at school.

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applying to a school board meeting..
"The school board created a limited public forum when it opened its meetings for public comment, the judge held. As a designated public forum, the school board can only impose time, place and manner restrictions, but could not prohibit the speech based on its content. "

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"On Monday, I wrote about the event in Massachusetts that you’ve all heard about by now. Several South Hadley, Massachusetts high school students are being tried on felony charges for the harassment of a high school freshman which led to her suicide. It was worse than harassment - it was persecution, both physical and mental, and in the full view of other students and teachers. No one did anything to stop them, not even fellow students. Disgusting, really."

"What I want you parents to do is to teach your children to stand between evil and the innocent, even if they risk being ostracized or worse. It is only when people stop just standing by that evil will be squelched."

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From the April 8 issue of The New York Times: "We were aware of some of the things that changed for Phoebe, but we weren't aware of any bullying," Mr. Sayer said. "If she had said she was being bullied we would have acted on it immediately." [emphasis added]

That is bulls---. I'm not one to use vulgarity in a column, but I have never been so viscerally upset upon sitting down to write an article. Simply as a human being, but especially as a future teacher and as a former recipient of always malevolent and sometimes physically violent bullying, I was disgusted by this response.

Let me be clear: It is not in any way, shape or form Prince's fault that she was a victim of bullying. It was not her responsibility to explicitly spell out exactly what was happening to her. It was, however, the job of school officials and teachers to reach out to her in a meaningful way, and it is now the time for these people to own responsibility for allowing such acts of violence to culminate in a tragic suicide.

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South Hadley's officer in the high school, Detective Todd Dineen, was friends with Phoebe Prince, but she did not report the alleged bullying to her policeman friend.

Wednesday night school resource officer, Detective Todd Dineen, and another policeman escorted an angry parent out of a school committee meeting in South Hadley.

After months of negative coverage about the Prince suicide, Dineen did not want to speak on camera. But, South Hadley Police Chief David Labrie says Dineen, who in the elementary, middle and high schools, has always done a great job.

LaBrie says "Given the publicity this has taken on he has been involved in a lot more incidents and reports of bullying type behavior. Teasing, harassing behavior."

But, some are wondering where Dineen was when Phoebe Prince was being bullied. Interestingly enough, Dineen knew Prince and had actually formed a bond over their shared Irish heritage.

LaBrie says "Nothing was reported to him. He knew Phoebe Prince. He had instructed a class that she was in. In early November he spoke with her. He's Irish, she was Irish and they formed a conversation about Ireland and about how beautiful the scenery was there. So, he did have interaction with her and he knew her through a class. She did not report any inappropriate activities to him."

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Attorney Colin Keefe represents Sharon Chanon Velasquez, one of the six teens indicted in the Phoebe Prince case.

The following is statement Keefe released on April 15, 2010:

I would like to remind people: My client has plead not guilty and not delinquent.

We are dealing with a 16 year old whose life is being torn apart and placed, out of context, under a microscope.

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For months during her freshman year of high school, Phoebe Prince was subjected to verbal abuse and physical threats that made her life hellish. But friends here and in her native Ireland describe her as an inspiring and intelligent teenager with a quick laugh and talent for writing, drawing and talking.

"She was so outgoing and she just kind of drew you in," South Hadley High School freshman Meghan Kennedy, said in a phone interview. "The second you met her you wanted to know everything about her. She could have this life conversation with you like you knew her. It was really nice to meet her."

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At first she sough solace in her iPod about which she had once written "I have a song for every moment and mood of my day."
After a French class after lunch Phoebe seemed increasingly despondent to friends. She described an incident of bullying to them and said "I'll find way out of this problem."

Little did the friends know she was talking about killing herself.

Her death confounded her friends who pointed out that she signed off her text messages with a saying "life is an opportunity in itself."

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April 15, 2010...8:35 am
Mrs. District Attorney: please reconvene the grand jury

And have them look at the various statements from Mr. Sayer.

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Of course, every school must create a safe climate for all students and must deal promptly with complaints. But parents are the ones most responsible for their children’s values and behavior. If the South Hadley bullies acted as alleged, resulting in Phoebe Prince’s suicide, then why aren’t more people in the community asking how those families could raise such children?

Everyone needs to stop blaming school officials and parents, and start working together for the common good. Public witch hunts won’t bring Phoebe Prince back. What’s more, they make it harder to learn how to prevent such tragedies in the future.

Dan Cheever
Wareham
The writer was superintendent of schools in Lincoln and Weston and was president of Wheelock and Simmons colleges.

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Luke Gelinas had to leave last night's meeting. He told 22News, he believes his first amendment rights were violated.

"I started talking about the governor's recent remarks. As soon as I said the Governor of Massachusetts, the gavel came down and they said your done," said Gelinas.

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Some common misconceptions may lull the parents of bullies into failing to recognize warning signs.

Bullies are often star athletes or popular girls considered charismatic leaders by peers and adults, experts say. What's often missed or passed over as minor is a consistent pattern of control and aggression against other kids — behavior that socially savvy bullies can sometimes slide under the radar of grown-ups.

"It's not what we typically think of. It's not always the kid who's pushing kids down on the playground," says Rosalind Wiseman, who wrote "Queen Bees and Wannabes," the basis for the movie "Mean Girls."

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A defense lawyer is calling for calm after death threats have been made against teenagers charged in the death of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide after she was allegedly bullied by schoolmates.

“Not to minimize what happened to Phoebe Prince in any way, but translating this into death threats and public harassment has got to stop,” says Colin Keefe, who represents Sharon Chanon Velazquez, accused of tormenting Prince, who hanged herself on Jan. 14.

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In a recreation of her final hours, People says that she was "skipping around" in the morning but her mood deteriorated as the day went on.

A pal describes how she was targeted with a "barrage of vicious taunts and vulgar insults".

At first she sought solace in her iPod, about which she had once written: "I have a song for every moment and mood of my day."

But after lunch Phoebe seemed increasingly downbeat. She described an incident of bullying to friends and said: "I'll find a way out of this problem," but they never thought that she was talking about killing herself.

Her death was all the more shocking to friends because she often signed off her text message saying, "life is an opportunity in itself".

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When we surveyed about 200 students at our high school, 53% said they think we need more recreation sites in
our town. We found that 56% of these students do participate in an organized recreational activity and spend up
to 2 hours outside per day, but this is usually within the confines of a team sports practice. Teachers who
responded to a survey said they prefer the open areas of the past to the more structured areas and businesses that
have now taken over South Hadley. They all commented that they missed a sense of togetherness that the town
used to offer.

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SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. (WWLP) - Wednesday’s school committee meeting in South Hadley gave people the ability to respond to the bullying controversy that’s rocked their town. But, it also started controversy of it’s own when the basic right of freedom of speech was challenged.

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22News showed video of the meeting to Bill Newman, a civil liberties lawyer. He said he couldn't speak directly to this incident. But, he did explain the law. He said " The decision to remove someone from a meeting and public speak time, the decision to cut somebody off cannot be based on the content. That is the viewpoint of what the speaker is saying."

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A 22News investigation uncovered at least one death threat targeting a private citizen who publicly questioned school authorities.

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the school has received about 10 to 12 threatening emails. All of them have been from anonymous senders, and some are from far away states

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ROBERTS: Mitch, one of the most troubling things that we're hearing about the Phoebe Prince case is that some of these bullying took place in front of staff members, other students as well. And now a growing chorus of people are asking, where was the school in all of this? Why didn't they step in to intervene? Did any of that happen with your daughter? And what do you think about what happened with Phoebe Prince?

BROUILLARD: Yes, I believe some of that may have happened with my daughter. These adults should have stepped in. I mean, that's the opportune time to nip it in the bud. When an incident starts with just a confrontation, that's the time to put a stop to it. You don't want to let it progress to constant bullying and just stretching on for some time. To some degree I think they turned a blind eye, either not knowing how to handle the situation or unwilling to. But the term in South Hadley is being swept under the rug.

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