Last week in Staten Island, NY, 13-year-old Daniel Fitzpatrick killed himself. In a suicide note he wrote in July, he stated, “The teachers didn’t do anything.”
The New York Daily News reported:
The teen was bullied and taunted mercilessly over his grades and his weight by cruel classmates at Holy Angels Catholic Academy.
His parents charged the school’s principal and its teachers ignored the torment heaped upon young Daniel. The teen left behind a wrenching suicide note recounting his incessant abuse by five classmates.
“They did it constantly,” he wrote. “I ended up fighting (one) and got a fractured pinkie … I give up.”
The website Bullyingstatistics.org posted these statistics:
- Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC.
- For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts.
- Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost 7 percent have attempted it.
- Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University.
States with Biggest Bullying Problem
With back-to-school season upon us and more than 160,000 children missing school every day in the U.S. out of fear of being bullied, the personal-finance website WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2016’s States with the Biggest Bullying Problems.
To identify the states where bullying is most pervasive, WalletHub’s analysts compared 45 states and the District of Columbia across 17 key metrics, ranging from “bullying-incident rate” to “truancy costs for schools” to “percentage of high school students bullied online.”
| Top 10 States with the Bullying Problems | Bottom 10 States with Bullying Problems | ||||
| 1 | Michigan | 37 | California | ||
| 2 | Louisiana | 38 | Hawaii | ||
| 3 | West Virginia | 39 | Connecticut | ||
| 4 | Montana | 40 | Delaware | ||
| 5 | Arkansas | 41 | Florida | ||
| 6 | Texas | 42 | Rhode Island | ||
| 7 | Idaho | 43 | District of Columbia | ||
| 8 | Alabama | 44 | Vermont | ||
| 9 | South Carolina | 45 | North Carolina | ||
| 10 | Alaska | 46 | Massachusetts | ||
Click HERE for the complete list
Best vs. Worst
- The District of Columbia has the lowest percentage of high school students who were bullied on school property, 12.08 percent, which is 2.2 times lower than in Nebraska, where the percentage is highest, 26.28 percent.
- The District of Columbia has the lowest percentage of high school students who were bullied online, 7.86 percent, which is 2.7 times lower than in Idaho, where the percentage is highest, 21.08 percent.
- Maine has the lowest percentage of high school students involved in a physical fight on school property, 4.85 percent, which is 2.8 times lower than in the District of Columbia, where the percentage is highest, 13.81 percent.
- Kansas has the lowest percentage of high school students who missed school because they felt unsafe at school, 3.80 percent, which is 3.4 times lower than in Louisiana, where the percentage is highest, 13.10 percent.
- Vermont has the lowest percentage of high school students who attempted suicide, 5.88 percent, which is 2.2 times lower than in Louisiana, where the percentage is highest, 13.10 percent.
By ADAM SHRIER and LARRY MCSHANE, New York Daily News, excerpt posted on SouthFloridaReporter.com Aug. 19, 2016
Video by New York Daily News
By Richie Bernardo, For a WalletHub News Release posted on SouthFloridaReporter.com Aug. 19, 2016
