Edgewood schools hold forum on bullying after teen’s suicide
TRENTON — “It is very hard to lose her.”
On Dec. 1, Paula Thomas lost her youngest child.
“(She was) funny, artistic, she could do all the arts,” Thomas said. “She was a dancer, she drew, she painted.”
Her daughter, Zariah, died by suicide. She said Zariah had been bullied since she was in third grade, and it got worse when she got to high school.
“She was very smart and she was a straight-A student all the way until she got here,” she said.
Thomas said constant harassment led to her daughter’s death.
“She couldn’t take it no more so she took her life,” she said. “It is very hard to lose her.”
Nearly two weeks later, Edgewood City Schools hosted a community forum Monday night to talk about bullying at its schools.
In a letter to parents, Superintendent Kelly Spivey said district officials wanted to have the meeting after the they became aware of several social media posts that made it seem like Edgewood staff, faculty and administration are not doing enough to address bullying.
At the meeting, Spivey acknowledged that Zariah’s death sparked the meeting.
“It saddens me to think our youngsters think we’re turning a blind eye,” Spivey said.
Dozens of people attended the meeting and shared their own experiences with bullying or their child’s experience.
One high school student said she hasn’t been able to go to school for months because she’s constantly bullied for her appearance and called various homophobic slurs. She said the bullying started in middle school and has gotten worse. She told Spivey she has tried to take her own life more than 20 times.
Isabel Rosskopf also attended the meeting because she wanted the bullying to stop. She said she hasn’t been bullied but said someone needs to speak up.
Rosskopf said Zariah was bullied and she saw videos of people throwing things at her.
“I moved here to Edgewood when I was in sixth grade, and ever since I knew her name I knew that she was bullied because everybody told me,” she said. “I’ve heard these people say ‘tell her to kill herself and end her life.’”
Rosskopf said she has heard students call their classmates racial slurs in front of teachers, and the teachers didn’t say anything.
“I would like to see teachers actually take action on bullying and ... the administration and our principals,” she said.
Spivey said she needs more people to come forward so they can fix the issue.
Rosskopf said she believes people don’t speak up about bullying because they’re afraid of retaliation from other students and because they know nothing will be done to help them.
Spivey offered this advice to students and parents who feel like they aren’t being heard: “If you feel like you’re not being listened to, there’s bosses (and) bosses’ bosses; I have bosses. Take it through the chain. If you feel the authorities need to get involved, they can get involved.”
The meeting lasted nearly two and a half hours. At the end, Spivey said she was upset.
“They deserve better,” Spivey said. “They deserve to feel safe when they come here. They deserve more than what I heard tonight.”
But her words don’t mean much to the Thomas family.
“The superintendent told me my daughter was not bullied and she had the nerve to send flowers to us after she sat there and told me there was no evidence of my daughter being bullied,” Thomas said.
Thomas attended the meeting, but left after Spivey said the district isn’t covering anything up.
“I’m going to do what I need to do to take the steps to get justice for my daughter. Someone is going to take accountability for this,” Thomas said.
She said after her daughter’s death, some of the students planned to wear black on one Monday to remember her.
Thomas said she wants the district to come up with a new bullying policy to implement stricter punishments for bullies. She said her family is grateful for the support of their family and friends as they mourn.
Her family set up a GoFundMe to help pay for funeral expenses. They plan to create a scholarship in Zariah’s name with any unused funds.