AMELIA COUNTY, Va. — The Amelia community is coming together for a special school board meeting Monday night after a 17-year-old died by suicide after his family said he was suffering from "relentless bullying" in school.
CBS 6 spoke to John Tyrcha’s stepfather, who said their family had reported the bullying to the school multiple times and had been in contact with school representatives by email, phone, and text.
After Tyrcha's death, a photo began circulating on social media showing a message, said to be written on a wall at the school, that included the word "John," alongside several insults.
Amelia County mom Janet Jones says she and other parents are questioning why that message wasn’t removed immediately, as they tell CBS 6 it was left up for days.
"I'm sure there were other things that were more important, or other things that happened before that," said Jones. "But instead of taking graffiti as a lower priority, y'all should have, how do I put this, investigated the situation and determined, based off the situation, how quickly to respond, versus a generalized policy."
Jones, who has a daughter in elementary school, says her daughter faced bullying in her classroom last year.
She explained it took numerous emails to school administrators to get her daughter moved to a new classroom after she began acting out in response to the bullying.
"They just kept pushing and pushing and pushing," Jones said. "And no matter how hard this little girl tried to just be nice to people, they weren't nice to her, and she couldn't understand why. It was hard for her."
Jones believes the school board needs to re-examine its code of conduct and make adjustments to ensure the level of bullying that Tyrcha experienced is stopped and doesn’t happen again.
"I would have the school district examine another district's policy on how they handle situations of discipline," said Jones. "Everybody's afraid of, is it going to be my child next? And not our kids. No, we the parents are angry, and it needs to be looked at."
In a message sent to families about Monday night's 6:30 p.m. special school board meeting, Superintendent Harper explained the district will be “providing detailed information about the code of conduct, the processes for accepting and addressing referrals for student misconduct, the Virginia Tiered Systems of Support, the Action Speaks system for reporting bullying, and their anti-bullying programs.”
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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