It could have been us. Saratoga High School’s year long nightmare case of 15-year-old Audrie Pott’s September suicide, and the following drama, could have happened in any upper middle class area, including the San Ramon Valley.
Pott was a sophomore at Saratoga High near San Jose when she attended a party, drank alcohol-laced Gatorade and passed out on Sept. 2, according to the San Francisco Chronicle,
Three 16-year-old male classmates then allegedly sexually assaulted her, drew on her, and took and shared photos of her that haunted Pott until she committed suicide on Sept. 12.
The photos of Pott never went viral, and most students claimed to have never heard of the incident until after Pott’s death.
The photos were, however, stored and shared via cellphone, and Pott was the alleged target of bullying and ridicule. “I am in hell,” she wrote in Facebook messages before her death, according to ABC News. “Everyone knows about that night, the whole school knows.”
Pott’s story spread like wildfire after her death. Yet it took almost eight months for the boys to be arrested and removed from the campus on April 11.
They were originally cited for sexual assault in the fall, but they faced little consequences at the hands of administrators.
The Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union School District released a statement saying that since the incident had not occurred on school grounds, the boys could not be expelled, according to abcnews.com.
But to allow three students accused of sexual assault to remain on campus for months is inexcusable. The district could easily have apprehended the boys for cyberbullying. State education codes states schools can investigate cases of cyberbullying that occurs on or off campus, according to ABC News.
The few students that saw the photos before Pott’s death should have reported them, even anonymously, to administration. Pott was being bullied, and her physical and emotional health were at stake.
Passing around incriminating photos of a classmate can have a profound effect on a student. Someone should have felt it necessary to report the students or at least discourage them from passing around the photos.
Pott also might not have felt so isolated if her closest friends and classmates had shown her some solidarity the week leading up to her suicide.
Though a story like Pott’s could potentially be repeated hundreds of times, school communities should try to make sure that it never happens again on their watch.