Brody's Notes... Minnesota Anoka-Hennepin Schools Superintendent: "None Of The Suicides Were Connected To Incidents Of Bullying"

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) DEC 17 | Andy Birkey of The Minnesota Independent reports:  

Monday night’s meeting of the Anoka-Hennepin School Board was a contentious one.

Over the last 18 months, the district has been at the heart of the debate over LGBT-bullying. In late 2009, a high-profile investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights found that two teachers in the district conspired to harass a student they thought was gay. The teachers went on leave, and the district paid $25,000 to the student. 

What is the state of Minnesota's largest school district, came under fire again after the July 9th death of 15 year old Justin Aaberg, who had hung himself after being bullied because of his sexual gender orientation according to his family and friends. School officials opened an investigation into the suicides of an additional nine students excluding Aaberg reported over the past school year — some by students who were allegedly bullied for their sexual orientation — and in a statement released last week, school personnel stated they had found no evidence that any of the nine who died had been bullied.
Birkey wrote:

“We continue to correct inaccurate statements about students who have committed suicide over the past year,” Superintendent Dennis Carlson told district staff. “We know how difficult these deaths have been for our schools. Based on all the information we've been able to gather, none of the suicides were connected to incidents of bullying or harassment. In addition to family and friends, many of our employees were personally affected by these tragedies."

"None of the suicides were connected to incidents of bullying," he said.

“As we all try to heal from the pain of these deaths the continuation of inaccurate information is not helpful,” he said. “Once again we have no evidence that bullying played a role in any of our students deaths. In a few instances, people told the school board and district leaders that employees stood by while a student was bullied. These statements are also not true. We have no evidence of that occurring.”

Birkey noted that during the board meeting which grew increasingly heated, several students and parents in attendance criticised the district for its statement — at times the conversation evoking loud protests and shouting matches — while school officials said there’s not much they can do if students and parents don’t report incidents to the schools.

Parents, teachers and students held a series of press events and gave testimonials before the school board where advocates said that as many of four students took their lives at least in part because of bullying. Carlson said that these statements by students, staff and parents at school board meetings weren't truthful based on data from the district’s student services department.
A freshman attending the meeting stood before the board and stated that he was angered and saddened that Superintendent Carlson said that testimony by fellow students, some staffers, and the parents were labeled as untrue.

“Not only did some of these kids who committed suicide get bullied before they died, but one of them, who was a personal friend of mine, was even bullied even after she died. Kids said things like ‘she deserved to die,’” he told the board.

“Even though I am straight, I get teased because people think I am gay based on how I dress. Recently I had an incident where a student in class harassed me, and I reported it to the teacher who then singled me out in front of the class and ultimately made the situation worse by how she handled it.” He said the teacher handled his complaints “indifferently.”

“You tell us to report things, but then when people come forward, like some have done in this very boardroom, you say that what we say isn't true,” he said. “Why should kids come forward then if you aren't going to believe them?”

Justin Aaberg’s mother, Tammy, was also angered by the school’s response. Speaking to The Minnesota Independent's Birkey, Aaberg said that she and her son had discussed his sexual orientation, and she was supportive of it.  She had only learned from his friends that he had been bullied at school just prior to his suicide.
Birkey says that Mrs. Aaberg has been lobbying the school district to make policy changes that will create an atmosphere of safety for the LGBTQ kids and is focused on elimination of the current school policy that forbids discussions of LGBTQ issues in classrooms by either faculty members or the students themselves.

“Gay kids believe that they deserved to be treated this way because they were gay,” she told the Minnesota Independent. “I honestly believe this is what Justin thought, which is why he tried not to make a huge deal of what happened to him. I don’t know why they are doing this,” she said of the district’s response to statements by parents and students. “This is outrageous. They are bullying [students] into silence,” she said.

Birkey says:

A district staff member, fearful about being fired for criticizing the district about the policy, spoke with the Minnesota Independent on condition of anonymity. It can be confusing for adults — let alone students — to know when LGBT issues can be brought up at all, the staff person said: “The policy is confusing. The policy is a paragraph in length and earlier this year [the district] produced a two-page table to define situations that were either neutral or not. Only one of the points on the table was actually curricular.”

The staffer continued, “They always claim that it’s only a curriculum policy. It was very laughable because one of the points was about staff wearing rainbows on their lanyards and how some students would be made to feel uncomfortable if staff wore rainbows. In the so-called training we had at the beginning of the year, any mention of homosexuality is supposed to cause the teacher to make a referral to the counselor or school psychologist. This pathologizes homosexuality.”