Constantly bullied, he ends his life at age 11

Less than two weeks before his 12th birthday, the bright boy beloved for his wide smile came home and hanged himself.

He left a note, saying he loved his mother and his aunt. He also left his Pokemon games and cards to his 6-year-old brother. On a Monday evening, as his mother was preparing dinner, she found him hanging from the railing of the third-floor landing, by an electrical cord.

His note did not say why, only that he was sorry for what he had done. But in a way only a mother could, Sirdeaner Walker had to explain the pressures her son faced.

"I know he would not have done this," Walker said, "unless he felt he did not have any other choice."

An 11-year-old committing suicide is tough to explain, especially to a mother. But Walker's newfound campaign to address schoolyard harassment since the death of her son on April 6 has exposed realities that national experts and academics are still trying to comprehend: bullying, youth suicide, and a community's responsibility to respond.

"There's so much more to this story," Walker, the director of a homeless program at a local social-service agency, said only days after she found her son dead. "Carl was a wonderful young man, and he had so much potential, and his potential is now gone."

Officials at the New Leadership Charter School acknowledged that the boy was bullied, but said they had responded appropriately and that the death was a tragedy no one could have foreseen.

"When we would see this (bullying), we would sit them down and tell them this is not an appropriate way to act," said Peter Daboul, chairman of the board of trustees at the charter school.

Since 2002, at least 15 schoolchildren, ages 11 to 14, have committed suicide in Massachusetts. They include a 13-year-old last year at the Gilmore Academy, a school for gifted students in Brockton. Three of them were Carl's age. But Walker won't let her son become just another statistic.

By all accounts, he was a promising sixth-grader, some say a scholar in-the-making who mixed football and basketball practice with mentorship and leadership programs. All along, he was the charismatic one in the class who would sing to Rihanna's "Umbrella" with the radio during a bus trip, or pose for the camera on a roller-blading adventure with a summer youth program.

"You knew he wanted to be somebody," said Clifford Flint, of the Black Men of Greater Springfield group, at the boy's funeral. Flint knew Carl through a mentorship program.

For Carl, the darkness began in September when he entered a new school, a process that can leave even the most secure of children unnerved and uncertain.

All was well, his mother said, until he met his new classmates and tried to make friends at New Leadership, a diverse Grade 6-12 school with just under 500 students. Walker enrolled her son at the charter school as an alternative to the local public middle school, thinking he would have better opportunities.

There, the troubles began. Students would bully Carl, say he was gay, make fun of his clothes. He complained of gangs and had to eat lunch with a guidance counselor numerous times to evade the harassment that was tearing at his young soul.

Walker did everything she could. She complained to teachers and administrators. She sat in one of Carl's classes, to get acquainted with the school. She joined the Parent-Teacher Organization and became head of the Sixth Grade group. She asked for help, saying no student, let alone her son, should be subject to such abuse.

The school staff knew about the harassment. Daboul, chairman of the board of trustees, said Carl met regularly with a psychologist to discuss his relationship with classmates, and students involved in bullying were disciplined. He defended the school's response, saying its anti-harassment policies go beyond what is required in Springfield schools. Among other things, the school issues a policy handbook on bullying to all students and makes them sign an agreement to treat each other with respect.

Daboul said the board of trustees has formed a committee to investigate the way the school responded, how staff worked with Carl, how staff disciplined and advised other students, and how administrators reacted to Walker's complaints. The committee's findings could help determine what went right, what did not, and ways the school and others can respond to such incidents in the future, Daboul said.

But he also stressed that the death was a tragedy, and that the suicide, and bullying, are an indication of a more sweeping problem.

Nationwide, suicide rates among 10- to 14-year-olds have grown more than 50 percent over the last three decades, according to the American Association of Suicidology, or the AAS. In 2005, the last year nationwide statistics were available, 270 children in that age group killed themselves. Suicide remains among the leading causes of death of children under 14. And in most cases, the young people die from hanging.

"Suicides go back to the biblical days. It's not a new phenomenon, even among kids," said Dr. Lanny Berman, head of the AAS. "Young people can, and do, die by suicide."

The struggle, Berman said, is to find the underlying cause, and ways to learn from such tragedies. Decades ago, family strife may have driven a youngster to commit suicide. Today, a teenager under constant harassment can feel stressed and depressed and begin acting out until the bullying is overwhelming.

"This is not simply teasing behavior," Berman said. "This has serious consequences, one of which we now know much more about."

The National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center estimates that close to 30 percent of today's schoolchildren are either bullies or have been harassed by them. Boys are often beat up. Girls are the subject of rumors. Either way, the targets can feel tense, anxious, and afraid. Over time, they lose their self-esteem and sense of self-worth. They become withdrawn, and depressed.

In Carl's case, in the classroom "there was no one he felt he could turn to who could help him," said Eli Newberger, a pediatrician and faculty member at Harvard Medical School who has written about bullying and child development.

He said schools need to look at ways to not only prevent bullying, but also teach youngsters how to cope with harassment and how to empathize with others students.

"How to discern other people's individual rights, and to appreciate and respect them," he said.

One bill introduced to the state Legislature before Carl's suicide would require the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to set up a model curriculum for schools to follow on addressing bullying and teasing, which includes harassment over the telephone, computer, or other electronic device. School employees would have to undergo yearly training in identifying and responding to bullying, students would have to participate in surveys each year, and school districts would be required to set up antibullying policies approved by the state. Currently, districts can decide on their own policies, and the state is only required to provide resources.

Walker said she will file a complaint with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education about how New Leadership handled the incident. She believes the school could have done more to help her son, and she urges schools to learn from this tragedy "because I don't want anyone to have to bury their child like this."

"No one should have to do that," she said.

She had noticed Carl acting out, seeming disruptive, and having troubles at school. He would tell her, "I hate this school." They already had plans for him to attend a private academy. But until then, his mother asked, try to make it work.

That Monday, he was in another fight. A girl had yelled at him and threatened him after he accidentally bumped a TV at the school with his backpack, and the TV bumped into the girl. School staff intervened. The psychologist who had been seeing Carl tried to mediate, and told him and the girl that the three of them would have to sit together during lunch for the week.

Carl called his mother after school and told her of the fight.

At 6:28 p.m., she found him hanged.

Milton Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@globe.com.