Mother sues New Jersey school board, educators over young daughter's suicide
An 11-year-old New Jersey girl who committed suicide earlier this year repeatedly emailed school officials about “ongoing and systemic bullying that (she) was suffering from at the school,” a lawsuit states.
The wrongful-death suit alleges Felicia LoAlbo-Melendez endured taunting, slurs and social exclusion from fellow students while in the fifth and sixth grades at F.W. Holbein School in Mount Holly, which is in south Jersey.
It claims Mount Holly educators were negligent and failed to protect the girl from an “extended, persistent period of bullying” in her classroom, as well as via cell phones.
Felicia hanged herself in a school restroom on Feb. 6, law enforcement officials have said. She was found unconscious and died two days later.
Mount Holly girl's death raises question Is early youth suicide so rare, or are we just not realizing there is a problem?
The suit notes the ordeal of Felicia’s mother, Elaina LoAlbo of New Egypt, who stayed at her side in a hospital room “and cradled her daughter when she was taken off life support and remained with her until her final breath.”
It also cites a suggestion from Felicia to school officials that she be allowed to organize a “trauma club” for children.
You can read the full complaint here.
Lawsuit: Felicia LoAlbo-Melendez faced slurs, insults
Among other claims, the 27-page suit contends Felicia was called “ugly,” “furry” and “gay,” and was excluded from social activities based on her position that “love is love and that she could love another of the same or different gender.”
It describes an incident when a student poured water on Felicia’s chair, then shouted out that Felicia had urinated when she sat in the puddle.
The teacher "never took action to report or discipline the student," the suit alleges.
And it contends that, in the weeks before Felicia’s death, two students “taunted Felicia to ‘unlive yourself.’”
The suit, filed in state court on Nov. 2, seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for her mother and for Felicia’s estate.
It also seeks payment of the mother’s legal expenses.
Suit accuses Mount Holly school officials of negligence
Defendants include the school board, Mount Holly School Superintendent Robert Mungo, Holbein Principal Daniel Finn, and the school’s anti-bullying specialist, Terry Convery.
Representatives of the district and the other defendants could not be reached for immediate comment.
The suit includes a mathematical argument to allege "a severe under-reporting of bullying incidents" in Mount Holly schools.
It says a 2014 survey report from the Centers for Disease Control had found 20 percent of students said they were bullied at least once in a school year.
That percentage would represent about 200 reports of bullying in Mount Holly schools annually, while the school board considered an estimated 17 cases in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years, the suit says.
The suit says Felicia’s parents — her father died just days before the girl’s suicide — “first initiated” the girl’s emails about bullying to school officials.
It says LoAlbo reached out to the mother of one student bully and first contacted school officials about her daughter’s harassment when Felicia was in the fifth grade.
The mother also contacted the school’s principal and anti-bullying specialist "in November, December 2022,” the suit adds.
“School officials promised to re-arrange Felicia's assigned classes in January 2023 to lessen contact with her bullies. However, these steps were never undertaken prior to her death,” the lawsuit says.
It quotes from one email in which Felicia proposed a club — in “a room that is not too big and not too small” — where students could discuss “trauma and triggers.”
According to the lawsuit, Felicia wrote, “I was watching TV and thinking about the things in my life that happened to me and I got a great idea."
“Instead of drama club, it would be a trauma club … I would help and provide as much as I can," the girl wrote.
“I for one have heard from my friends and others about things that have happened to them and I think this would be a fantastic thing,” she said, before ending with a salute to the school’s mascot.
“Have a great night. Go dragon.”
Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: Jwalsh@cpsj.com.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Mother sues New Jersey school over young daughter's suicide
