After Son's Suicide, Family Is Advocating For Law That Requires Schools To Report Bullying To Parents

Oct 10, 2018

A family wants schools to put forth more effort when it comes to bullying after a young boy committed suicide.

Richard and Christine Taras had to endure possibly the worst thing that parents could go through. They had to bury their son because he was bullied to the point that he took his own life. They believe that Jacobe might be alive today if his school would have done something different and made them aware of what was going on instead of ignoring the issue of bullying. Richard and Christine are reaching out to other parents to let them know about what to look for if they suspect that their children are being bullied so that they don't have to lose their children as well.

Jacobe was 13 and a smart student in middle school. He was active in Boy Scouts and enjoyed playing soccer for the school. Unfortunately, he was still bullied by the people in his school. Even the people who played sports with him bullied him to a point where he just couldn't take it any longer. Jacobe's parents didn't even know that he was being bullied like this because no one at the school monitored the situation and let them know.

Christine left the home in 2015 to go to the store. Jacobe didn't go with her. Christine found her son when she got home. There was a note with his body. He told his parents that he couldn't take the bullying any longer. He was in pain and didn't know how to deal with it and was tired of the names that kids were calling him. Jacobe had been pushed at school and had been told to kill himself. At the end of the note, Jacobe told his parents that he loved them.

Jacobe's parents were heartbroken because they knew nothing about the abuse that their son had to endure each day. They didn't know that he was being tripped in the halls. They didn't know that students thought that he was gay. If the teachers had paid attention to what was going on in the school, such as kids throwing books at Jacobe, then Christine and Richard know that they could have found some kind of help for their son. They could have prevented his suicide.

Christine thinks that the school knew what the other kids were doing and that there are possibly other kids at the school that are being bullied as well.

Learn about what Christine and Richard are now doing to promote awareness at other schools and help their cause by spreading the word. Show this article to your friends and family and keep Jacobe's family in your thoughts and prayers.