Students take cyberbullying to whole new level by sending emails through a hacked computer to a teenaged schoolgirl
A mother of a 13-year-old girl speaks about how her daughter, Kersten Laughlin was cyberbullied through school technology.
Amy Laughlin, a mom in Belton, MO, says her daughter, Kersten, has been receiving unpleasant emails through schools hacked email accounts. Amy claims that all the bullying messages were received from Kersten’s friendsโ email addresses. However, officials at Belton Middle School, where Kersten is a seventh grade student, have reinforced that the email are not being sent from friends account but from someone who has hacked into those accounts, Laughlin says.
It all started in mid-April, when Laughlin received a phone call from Kersten in the middle of the school day. โShe was hysterically crying,โ Laughlin tells Yahoo Parenting. โShe said โMom, they said Iโm fat and ugly and need to die.โ
When Kersten returned home from school that night, Laughlin browsed through her daughterโs school-assigned iPad and found a bunch of bullying emails that looked like had come from a variety of addresses. โThey said things like โmirror, mirror, on the wall, whoโs the fattest one of all?โ Really mean stuff,โ Laughlin says. โItโs degrading her so badly, and itโs on the email they use at school to turn in assignments. Iโm basically sending my kid to school to get emails telling her how fat and ugly and horrible she is.โ
Laughlin says she is not too anxious about Kersten, but is worried about the other victims who may be receiving similar kind of emails. โKerstenโs a pretty tough kid but you worry about the ones that donโt talk to their parents or donโt speak up,โ she says. โAnd no matter how tough you are, when you get enough of these notes itโs going to get to you.โ
Laughlin said that Kersten has received such 20-30 emails in a span of two weeks. โThe school has admitted that someone is hacking accounts,โ she says. โThey squash one but then they start coming from someone else.โ Laughlin says that she has got to know that another six girls and one boy have been targeted by the emails over the last two weeks, who have received notes from five different email addresses.
Laughlin says her husband had gone to the school board to complain on April 16, which was the day after Kersten called home in tears . “Iโm not going to say the school wasnโt doing anything, but we were told it would be taken care of, and she was still getting these emails day after day,โ Laughlin says. โWe probably wonโt get information about who is doing this, since itโs a minor. And thatโs a little scary, to think this person is still going to be near her and weโre not going to know who it is.” The last email was received on Friday; so Laughlin is expecting that the school may have finally suppressed them.
However, no response was received immediately by Yahoo Parenting fromย the Officials at Belton Middle School.
Laughlin says that she is of the opinion that allowing iPads in the classroom is a mistake. โThe kids are too smart for them, they are โjailbreakingโ them โ getting past school security measures โ and how is it productive for them to be in class getting email after email?โ she says. โI wish the school would give kids back their paper and pencil and give them a technology class, where they are monitored. At least when they are on school time and school property.โ
Resource : Yahoo!