Students at Central Regional High School in Berkeley Township, New Jersey are mourning the loss of Adriana Kuch, a high school student who died by suicide shortly after a video of her being assaulted by a group of fellow students was posted to social media.
The circumstances of Adriana’s death has sparked outrage among students and community members at the school and a broader conversation about how best to protect children from the harms of bullying from peers in the social media age.
It’s also led to criminal charges for the students who were filmed attacking her and the resignation of the school superintendent after she blamed the death on Adriana’s alleged drug use and other familial issues.
What happened?
On February 1, a video surfaced on social media reportedly showing several students attacking Adriana as she walked down a hallway at her high school with her boyfriend. According to reporting from NJ.com, the attack lasted 30 seconds before school workers intervened and left the 14-year-old bloodied and bruised. Other students could be heard cheering in the background.
Two days later, family members found Adriana dead by suicide at their home in Bayview.
Her father, Michael Kuch, blamed the bullying for his daughter’s death and said he took her to the police following the attack and filed a police report that night. He believes that had the school opened an investigation into the attack after it happened, the video of the incident might not have made its way to social media.
The superintendent, Triantafillos Parlapanides, told NJ.com that the district’s decision not to report the assault to the police was in line with its policy.
But that did not happen, and the week after Adriana’s death, students at Central Regional High School walked out of their classes in protest at the school’s and school district’s handling of the kind of bullying Adriana had faced.
“Adriana took her own life because nobody at the school was able to help or care or step in,” Roman Valez, a sophomore, told WNBC. “I would actually like to teach the people who bully what they’re actually doing and how it affects.”
Who is facing charges?
On Friday, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D Billhimer announced that his office had filed criminal charges against four female students at the high school for their roles in the alleged attack. One of the students was charged with aggravated assault, two with conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and the final student with harassment.
Those students were all already suspended from school in the aftermath of the alleged attack. Given that they’re minors, their names have not been released.
According to Mr Kuch, one of the girls now facing a criminal charge had been bullying Adriana online for years prior to the alleged attack. He also told reporters that one of the alleged attackers sent his daughter a message mocking her after the video was posted to social media.
A broader problem
Mr Parlapanides, the superintendent, resigned over the weekend after he told the Daily Mail that Adriana had been offered counseling “for drugs” but that her father had declined to take the school up on its offer. The now-former superintendent had been in the position for 14 years.
Mr Parlapanides’ comments were met with widespread condemnation, but the administrative issues in the school district may not stop with him. Luca Canzoneri, a 15-year-old student at the school, told the Daily Mail that the school’s administration had been “making fun” of its students for protesting in the wake of Adriana’s death.
Her death is indicative of a wider problem — the prevalance of suicidal ideation and gestures among teenagers in the US.
A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that women and LGBTQ+-identifying teenagers are reporting record high levels of mental health challenges, with 42 per cent of all high school students reporting feeling sad or hopeless at some point in during 2021. That number represents a 50 per cent increase over the last decade.
Experts in the area have tied the emerging mental health crisis among teenagers to anxiety about the climate and political environment, social media, Covid, and increasing levels of social isolation. Thirty per cent of teen girls said that they had considered suicide.
“There’s no question young people are telling us they are in crisis,” Kathleen Ethier, director of CDC’s adolescent and school health division, said in comments about the study reported by PBS. “The data really call on us to act.”
