BUFFALO, N.Y. — A Buffalo woman was expected to address the city's Board of Education on Wednesday evening, who claims the suicide death of her grandson was the result of persistent bullying and inaction on the part of a school administrator.
As painful of a tale as this is to tell, it is one the community needs to know about, according to Blanca Martinez, in an effort to prevent such tragedies from reoccurring.
Her grandson, Dariel Rivera Reyes, was 12 years old and a sixth-grade student at Buffalo Public Schools' Martin Luther King Jr. school, Public School 48, on High Street.
On May 17, Martinez discovered her grandson in the bathroom of the home where she was raising him with an electrical cord around his neck. The boy later died when doctors were unable to resuscitate him.
"He was a good boy who took his own life ... and it's not fair to me or any parent who goes through this. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy," Martinez said. "Bullying should not be occurring in schools. This is unacceptable."
Dariel's family said his suicide followed relentless bullying at the hands of other students, both inside and outside of school, as well as online. She described the abuse as both physical and mental.
According to a teacher who spoke with us on the condition that we not say their name for fear of retaliation, a former principal at the school, who has since been removed, failed to act on numerous reports regarding Dariel's chief antagonist, a boy who had an infraction record seven pages long, involving serious offenses.
Although they say the student has now been banned from attending the school, Martinez says it was all too little, too late for her grandson.
"There were several reports, but what value did they have? The person that needed to take action on this didn't do anything," she said.
Dariel’s family was joined by other parents, teachers and students at the board meeting Wednesday evening, who all demanded change from the district. Those that spoke claimed school principals and educators are not doing enough to be there for students in their darkest moments, which has create a system-wide issue in Buffalo Public Schools.
“When we lose a child everything has got to stop. We have to stop,” Buffalo Public School parent Jessica Bauer-Walker. “We have to stop defending the system and ourselves and saying who, what person did this or that? We're failing. We're failing our children right now.”
BPS superintendent Tonja Williams says the board will be conducting a review to make resources more available to all students, parents and teachers going forward and also vows to hold those response for causing Dariel Rivera Reyes to take his own life accountable.
According to one national bullying prevention center, one out of every five students report being bullied, and students victimized by their peers in such fashion are 2.6 times more likely to attempt suicide.