Who Runs the Williamsville Central School District?

I’ve been upset to the point of nausea all week over the suicide of 14-year-old Williamsville student Jamey Rodemeyer. This adorable kid killed himself, most likely due to the incredibly cruel harassment of his classmates, which was most likely due to the fact that Jamey had decided he was gay. Although I doubt he came out to his classmates. They just abused him for being different, for not being macho enough, apparently. I hope the kids who did this to him are prosecuted within an inch of their lives, but that’s a post for another time. Or, you can read an excellent blog post on the topic here: Paws Up for Jamey Rodemeyer.

As the mother of two children who attend Williamsville schools, I’ve been particularly perturbed by the schools’ lack of response to this tragedy. My 12-year-old daughter, who is in 7th grade, came home on Tuesday and told me that the kids had been talking about Jamey all day. She and I talked about it then, and we’ve talked about it since, including her younger brother in the conversation, but the administration and teachers at the school have not said a word about it. I found that appalling and questionable, so I sent a carefully worded email to the principal, assistant principal, social worker and psychologist at their school. I got no response.

After 48 hours, I sent a similar message to the new Superintendent of Schools, Scott Martzloff. This poor guy just came onto the job about 6 weeks ago and probably wasn’t expecting a firestorm of this magnitude. But I still was disappointed in the ass-covering wimpiness of his response.

Below is my email to Dr Martzloff and then his email to me. I get that the District’s lawyers have got to be hysterical with fear that someone will say something wrong and bring down more liability on their heads. But tell me, what do you think of Dr Martzloff’s official response?

Dr. Martzloff,

My children both attend Mill Middle School. On Tuesday, my daughter came home and told me that a lot of the kids were talking amongst themselves about Jamey Rodemeyer’s suicide. I was pretty distressed to hear that none of the teachers or administrators discussed it with them. Three days later, this is still the case.

This story was all over Williamsville from Day One, and now it’s gone national, yet the kids are being left to discuss it on their own. We all know that in cases like this, rumors and untruths and distortions are going to proliferate, gossip is going to be spread, and the story is going to take on a life of its own. In the meantime, the kids who have serious questions, fears and concerns are going without guidance from the authority of the school district.

I’m sure I’m not the only parent who has talked to her children about the situation, and of course I’m happy to, to the best of my abilities. However, the schools have all of the kids together, for 6+ hours a day. The schools have professionals on staff. The schools are supposed to be educating our children. Why have the teachers, social workers, school psychologists and guidance counselors, who are there with our children every day, hearing what they are saying, not been talking to the students? Why have they passed over this opportunity to discuss bullying (harassment, hate crime) and suicide? Mill initiated the Rachel’s Challenge program last year — why was this perfect opportunity for real-life followup ignored?

It may be that for some reason, there are no guidelines in place for dealing with this kind of situation, but was any kind of meeting called to give guidance to the various schools on how to handle this situation? I’m very concerned that this topic has not been addressed by the schools.

Ms. Rohan,

Thank you for your email regarding your concerns about the school’s response to the recent tragedy of a North HS student. Please know that we take this issue very seriously and have encouraged all students and parents to contact our school-based mental health professionals to talk about their feelings. We also recently posted information on our website and sent a message to parents regarding what they can do to help support their children. If you have concerns with your child’s reaction to this tragedy, I would encourage you to speak to Mr. Calandra and/or one of the mental health professionals who work in Mill MS. While you may want to hear that there is a discussion around the issues that you cite, other parents may not be as comfortable with that and would prefer an individualized approach. One of our goals is to be sensitive in our response and not, as the research shows, create a situation where other students may copy the tragedy that took place.

Scott G. Martzloff, Ed. D
Superintendent of Schools
Williamsville Central School District
“Encourage, Nurture, Challenge”

In all of this, my heart goes out to Jamey’s parents, his sister, the rest of his family, and his friends. Rest in peace, Jamey. In peace.