Is four enough because really, one was too many

Four young teenagers dead.
One high school.
Mentor, OH.
Mentor High School.

Four teenagers bullied to death at one high school? Incredulous that no one could keep them safe. Horrible that they couldn't feel accepted.

All four of these students were good looking kids. One had a learning disability. One was even hated enough that she was taunted and laughed at in her casket at her wake. Despicable.

Mentor, OH is not a rough town. This school received an Excellent rating from the state. What is going on not just in OH, but everywhere?

School administrators and teachers are not standing up against or in the way of bullying. In fact, they're leading the way.

I attended the orientation meeting at the local high school where one of my children attend. The administrators addressed the usual parent orientation topics: dress code, attendance, grade reporting etc.

The part about the dress code was interesting. The administrator put up a picture of Benjl Madden (I doubt he even knows who Benji is) to show what a student shouldn't look like at school. Benji is tattooed and pierced. The face piercing is what the administrator was highlighting and said to the crowd jokingly, "How'd you like your daughters to bring this home?" First of all, Mr. Madden is NOT a high school student and is a grown man and may very well be a nice person. Who knows? Are we supposed to pass judgement on him because of he way he looks? Yep. We should publicly ridicule and make fun of him too. That's what every student in that audience was just shown an example of--if you're different than the accepted norm, you have to pay for it.

At another recent school assembly the administrator again brought up an ongoing issue at the school--hair color. It's against the rules for students to dye their hair any color that isn't natural. That's fine. Don't have a problem with this. The administrator then went on to call out publicly a student who'd already been disciplined for having hair color, in the student assembly, by first and last name, "Isn't that right ____________ _____________?" Every student in the assembly then turned to this student to gawk. The turn of bodies and then the dead silence that followed broke my heart. The student's hair was mostly dark brown with a three to four inch bleached part of bangs on one side of the head. No color involved. What gave this administrator the right to call this student out publicly? The fact this student was different. Different is persecuted publicly. This was the second example the students saw of this at this particular school.

So now, when they go and carry out this persecution themselves, we know why. It's what they're taught.
How many more kids need to die before we stop this behavior. Is four enough, because really, one was too many.