After suicide, DeKalb schools begin bullying probe

DeKalb County school officials have started their own internal review about the events surrounding the suicide of a fifth-grader.

Superintendent Crawford Lewis is scheduled later Monday to sit down with the boy’s principal “to make sure something like this never happens again.”

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MARK DAVIS / mrdavis@ajc.com

Friends posted a memorial to Jaheem Herrera on the door where he lived.

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Lewis commented Monday morning for the first time on the death of 11-year-old Jaheem Herrera who took his life, his family says, because he was being bullied in school.

Jaheem, who attended Dunaire Elementary School, hanged himself on April 16. His death became public last week, but Lewis was in North Carolina until Friday night at a leadership conference.

Jaheem’s mother, Masika Bermudez, said she had complained to school officials about the bullying and taunts Jaheem endured. On one occasion, Jaheem was choked in the bathroom, she said.

“If she came one time, that should have been sufficient,” Lewis said.

The system’s review, Lewis said, will coincide with talks that DeKalb District Attorney Gwendolyn Keyes Fleming has said she wants with parents and educators involved in the case. The system will cooperate fully, Lewis said.

He also said he would like to meet with Jaheem’s family, which has hired a lawyer to investigate their son’s death. Other Dunaire families have also stepped forward to complain that bullying is a problem at the school.

System officials announced last week that they will review how all DeKalb schools deal with bullying and how staff is trained because of the case’s seriousness.

Staff members this week will be asked to talk with students about bullying to remind them to “be careful about what you say. Words hurt. You need to be a better friend and a better classmate,” Lewis said.

Still, the case has caused parents at other schools to also speak out. One, Mike Wilson, interrupted Lewis’ press conference to complain of a “cover-up” in the treatment of his daughter when she was bullied over what he said was a three-year period as she attended Evansdale Elementary and Henderson Middle schools.

One of Lewis’ top aides took down Wilson’s information as Lewis promised the complaint would be reviewed.