Three months after South Hadley High School student Phoebe Prince, 15, took her own life, media coverage of the situation at the high school has exploded.
Accounts of charges filed against other students at the high school and flaring disagreements about how quickly the school responded to reports of bullying appear in national television broadcasts and on the pages of The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other widely read periodicals.
This intense scrutiny has impacted members of the Mount Holyoke and South Hadley communities to varying degrees.
“Certainly people are talking about it,” said sociology Professor Eleanor Townsley, a South Hadley resident, stating that conversations occur “at church, at college and with families.”
“Every time I drive past [South Hadley High School] there’s a news van parked in the parking lot,” she noted. Nonetheless, “media coverage seems quite divorced from things on the ground.”
Townsley is quite critical of the coverage, and she suggested that it contributed to “a moral panic.”
She said that she was “pretty horrified that the photographs and the names of the students have been publicized,” referring to the students who have been charged in connection with Prince’s death.
Instead of focusing on all the factors that may have driven Prince to suicide, Townsley suggested that such coverage has framed the situation in a “find the criminal” manner that likely has proven “very good for some journalists’ careers.”
Sociology professor Matt McKeever, another South Hadley resident, stated that while he has not personally observed the impact of the reporting, he thinks “other people in town might have.”
He typically does not pay attention to the national media on local issues such as this one, and he said that “whether [the media coverage] is appropriate depends on whether it sells more newspapers or not.”
Clare Curran ’11, a psychology and education department liaison who works as a pre-practicum student at Crocker Elementary School in Amherst, wrote in an e-mail that the school’s staff members “are taking more and more steps to prevent situations like the one at the high school from occurring again.”
“A serious problem that new teachers need to be trained to deal with,” bullying has become a frequent topic of discussion in Curran’s classes.
Curran wrote that she believes Mount Holyoke’s education department “should take this area of study and training into account and prepare the future teachers to help deal with situations and possibly see warning signs of serious problems such as the one at the high school.”
Professor Lenore Reilly Carlisle of the psychology and education department agreed that the situation “gives us cause to think about how we function as teachers.”
“We’re always interested to learn from the many challenges that face schools everywhere,” she said.
Mount Holyoke faculty members seemed to agree that the College should refrain from entering the situation unless asked by the South Hadley School District.
McKeever explained that relationships between colleges and universities and the surrounding communities are remarkably complex. “You don’t want Mount Holyoke running things, but on the other hand, the college shouldn’t be aloof.”
Contributing volunteer hours and educational opportunities are always appropriate, McKeever suggested, and Mount Holyoke’s appropriate level of involvement has not changed because of the tragic events at South Hadley High School.
“We aren’t trained to run public schools,” said Carlisle of Mount Holyoke’s faculty.
“Any support or resources that we could offer need to be the result of a request,” Carlisle said.
The Facts of the Case
On March 26, 2010, three students were indicted on a single charge of violation of civil rights (with bodily injury resulting) in violation of the law as defined by GL c. 265, section 37. They were charged with willfully intimidating or threatening Phoebe Prince in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privileges guaranteed to her by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or by the constitution or laws of the United States.
The Massachusetts State Detective Unit was contacted at 4.55pm on Jan. 14 regarding an alleged suicide. Sean Mulveyhill, a South Hadley High School senior, had ended a dating relationship with Ms. Prince, a South Hadley High School freshman. Mulveyhill resumed a dating relationship with his girlfriend, South Hadley High School junior, Kayla Narey. Ashley Long, a South Hadley High School junior, had known Mulveyhill for years and the pair were close platonic friends.
Mulveyhill and Narey were present during Long’s verbal abuse and partook with derogatory comments about Prince calling her an “Irish slut.”
On Jan. 13, Prince explained school “has been close to intolerable lately.”
On the day of the suicide, Long called Prince a “whore” and other epithets. As Prince was walking home from school, Long threw an empty energy drink can at her from inside a car.
In December 2009, Austin Renaud, a student at South Hadley High Schoo], was reported to have engaged in a dating relationship with Prince. Flannery Mullins was Renaud’s girlfriend and Sharon Chanon Velazquez was Mullins’ good friend.
Velazquez was often heard berating Prince and said she would “punch her in the face.” At one point, Phoebe asked her friends to surround her as she walked through the hallways.
Related posts:
- Town of South Hadley plans new public library at South Hadley Falls
- Student volunteers contribute to South Hadley community
- South Hadley debates adoption of mayoral government
- South Hadley residents discuss taser donation
- South Hadley residents discuss new housing projects
