Father: School received bullying report before daughter’s suicide
School officials told Jason Lamberth there was no record of his daughter being bullied before her Dec. 12 suicide, though she mentioned it in her farewell note.
Lamberth believed them, until days ago.
That’s when an anonymous tipster told Lamberth to request his 13-year-old daughter’s disciplinary file from White Middle School in Henderson.
The call came after a Review-Journal story about Lamberth’s plea to the Clark County School Board on Feb. 27, when he begged for answers to questions he asked three weeks before in a private meeting with Principal Andrea Katona and Academic Manager Andre Long.
No one from the district had called or emailed since that meeting, so there he was in front of the School Board, not to be ignored for his allotted two minutes.
Lamberth and his brother were back on Thursday asking the School Board a whole new set of questions, holding up the disciplinary file of Hailee Joy Lamberth, provided by White Middle School at Lamberth’s request.
“I cannot say with 100 percent certainty that if we knew about this, it would’ve saved her,” said Lamberth’s brother, Daniel Lincoln. “I also cannot say with 100 percent certainty that it wouldn’t have. But we weren’t given that chance.”
The file told of an anonymous tip submitted to the Clark County School District’s Web page, Say No to Bullying, where someone reported that Hailee was being harassed on Nov. 21, exactly three weeks before her death. The harasser’s name was blacked out.
The website, created in September 2011, allows anyone to anonymously report a suspected bullying incident, and district policy requires a school administrator to investigate within 10 days and report the findings.
Lamberth said that the incident was confirmed and that the school’s administration told him the child was disciplined.
District spokeswoman Kirsten Searer said the district can’t confirm nor deny the report because of federal student privacy laws.
While the district is holding true to that law, Lamberth contends school officials ignored a state law prohibiting school bullying.
Nevada law requires principals to investigate all suspected incidents of bullying within 24 hours of receiving notice.
The law also says that if bullying is found to have occurred, the principal must provide written notice to the parents of “each pupil involved in the reported violation.”
“Neither my wife nor I were contacted about any such incident,” Lamberth said.
With the district not providing any detailed information about the incident because of student privacy laws, it’s uncertain whether it was an isolated incident or met the Nevada definition of bullying requiring the Lamberths be notified.
Under state law, bullying is a willful act that “exposes a person repeatedly and over time to one or more negative actions which is highly offensive to a reasonable person” and either physically or emotionally harms, threatens to harm, or exploits an imbalance in power.
Regardless of whether the definition was met, Lamberth insists his family should have been informed when Hailee was harassed. And they most definitely should have been told after her death, his brother said.
“Everywhere we look, the reaction is ‘No one has done anything wrong,’ ” his brother said.
Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky didn’t acknowledge Lamberth after his comments at the Feb. 27 meeting but announced Thursday that he is creating a bullying task force to address Lamberth’s concerns.
The task force, led by former Associate Superintendent Billie Rayford, will review district bullying policies and state bullying laws, investigate whether they’re being followed and recommend possible changes, Skorkwosky said.
Skorkowsky will also be sitting down with Lamberth next week.
“Superintendent Skorkwosky, I look forward to meeting with you March 17,” Lamberth said sternly before walking away from the lectern and out the board room.
Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279 702-383-027. Follow him on Twitter at @TrevonMilliard.
