A PROBLEM WITH BULLYING?

Bullying: Does LHISD have a problem?

In aftermath of student suicide, many parents say yes and district officials respond

BY RACHEL MADISON

STAFF WRITER

Is bullying a problem in the Liberty Hill Independent School District? If you ask City Council member Will Crossland and his wife, Amanda Crossland, that answer will be a definite yes. The Crosslands lost their son, Jaycee, a 15-year-old sophomore at Liberty Hill High School, to suicide in October after learning he had been bullied by his peers for coming out as gay just a couple of weeks prior.

Since his death, the Crosslands, particularly Amanda, have been advocating for ways to improve how students are treating each other across all campuses. She has created an online group called Jaycee’s Hope, which she plans on turning into a nonprofit organization, and has used that platform, among other social medias, to gather stories from parents and students within the district who have their own bullies.

Amanda Crossland said going through this process has opened her eyes to the issues of bullying that kids are being subjected to in and out of school, and through her new organization and by meeting with LHISD officials, she hopes to spark some real change, including how these cases are handled by administrators.

Bullying in LHISD

While the district does have a student code of conduct with an extensive section on bullying, some parents feel like the protocol isn’t being followed as it should be.

Kristie Rickard moved her family to Liberty Hill after hearing about the wonderful culture and community the school district provided, but said once her daughter, Simone Burns, started at Liberty Hill Middle School, her perspective on the community changed.

“Other kids spread rumors about my daughter, they told her she was fat and ugly, and even told her to kill herself,” Rickard said. “They would make fun of her in passing and call her a whore and a slut. I was at the school almost daily telling administration she was being harassed.”

Rickard said she doesn’t feel like officials did as much as they could, even though she reported what was going on.

“I have never received an answer from the district as to what they were going to do to resolve the issue or make it better,” she said. “We just kept hearing ‘kill them with kindness, be patient, things will change.’ Are you kidding me? They were basically telling my daughter this was acceptable behavior.”

Rickard said this year, she transferred her daughter to a school in Leander Independent School District because LHISD wouldn’t do anything to help her feel safe.

“She missed 173 days of school in one school year last year in sixth grade,” Rickard said. “We got no resolution, and my daughter begged me to move her to a new school.”

Rickard said she has contacted the TEA as well as the Texas State Board of Education to file a formal complaint. She is also planning on hiring an attorney to help her navigate through the concerns she has about her daughter’s treatment within LHISD.

Another Liberty Hill parent, April Neves, said her sixth-grade son, who she wants to remain anonymous, has also been bullied.

“He got punched on the bus, had an issue in gym class where some girls were picking on him and hitting him, and one kid even ‘pantsed’ him in the locker room,” Neves said. “Those things have been figured out and handled by the district, but he now has another bully that we are currently in the process of pressing charges against.”

Neves said the student is known for poking his finger into other students’ behinds without them knowing, as well as making “humping” motions on their legs.

“We signed a paper that says that boy can’t even make eye contact with my son, but we are pressing charges for my son and for the kids that can’t speak up and are scared,” Neves said. “If we don’t do something now and this kid doesn’t learn from this now, I don’t want to think what will happen in high school.”

Neves’ daughter, Teagin Neves, is a freshman at LHHS who plays basketball and is a part of the FFA. She has been attending LHISD schools since fifth grade, and said she has seen multiple incidents of bullying.

“I have been personally involved in this bullying and while my bullying was not super severe, I did have feelings of not wanting to go to school because of it,” she said. “It is sad for me to say that throughout the almost six years that I have been attending Liberty Hill that no one has stepped up to the extreme bullying issues within the district. I believe that in the high school alone there are over 100 kids being bullied because of the way they look or the way that they dress.”

Teagin Neves added that cyberbullying has gotten out of hand, because some of the accounts that are used for bullying are untraceable.

“I want to speak up against the issue,” she said. “Most kids are scared to speak up against the issues because they will be made fun of or called a ‘snitch,’ but I am fine with being the ‘snitch’ because this is a severe issue in this school district and it needs to be stopped immediately.”

How does the district respond?

Superintendent Steve Snell said bullying within LHISD “is not tolerated.”

“The challenge with bullying is that when a kid gets bullied they might not report it to anybody at school or home,” Snell said. “In the past, bullying would occur at school but students always had a place that was safe, like home or church. Now bullying happens in so many forms. With cell phones and social media kids can’t escape from it. It comes to them 24 hours a day. None of it is good or what we want in schools.”

Snell added that across the district, teachers and staff are actively working with students to be nice to each other and build each other up.

“I think our schools do a good job of offering things to help kids connect,” he said. “The last couple of years with COVID created more isolation, and I think our teachers do a good job supporting the kids through that.”

Snell said every bullying case is treated differently. Bullying and harassment consequences are listed in the student code of conduct and parent/student handbook, which can be accessed by anyone on the LHISD website.

“There is an official bullying report we do, and then we have district protocols in place that we go through at the campus level,” Snell said. “We contact the kids involved and their parents. There are two parts to it. If you are bullying someone, there are consequences, but there’s also an education piece so that you can understand the behavior you are engaged in is not appropriate.”

Jamie Richardson, the counseling coordinator for LHISD, said if a school counselor becomes aware of a bullying situation, the assistant principal is notified to take care of the issue on the disciplinary end, while on the counseling end, the goal is to provide students with support.

“In many cases we aren’t just providing support to the student who is being bullied, but we also reach out to the student who is doing the bullying because there is usually something going on there, too,” she said. “We want to help them get to a place where they understand bullying is not a wise decision and understand why they are lashing out in such a way.”

LHISD Trustee Kathy Major said the school board’s role is to provide support to what district officials are doing, while also addressing it for the serious issue that it is.

“The board and the school district at large are keen on reducing bullying to the maximum extent, and as a board we are ready to help oversee proactive plans moving forward, and be in support of the district and what they need to make those plans happen.”

How has bullying changed?

Major, a retired Liberty Hill principal, said bullying has been around as long as people have been socially involved, which means it’s not a problem that can be solved overnight. Add to that the extra layer of social media that’s a big part of students’ lives now, and it makes bullying that much easier.

“Social media is a platform for bullies because they can say anything they want and there’s not really an accountability for it,” Major said. “It’s so immediate it gets to people right away. Just about anybody at any age can use social media to gain some sport of power, which is where bullying is centered.”

The Crossland family was joined by friends and supporters at the State Capitol recently to bring awareness to teen suicide. (Courtesy Photo)

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