Bullying Incidents Raise Questions About Role of School Officials

With nine students charged in the bullying of a Massachusetts girl who hanged herself in January, and $50,000 awarded to a New York teenager after his school district failed to stop taunts about his sexual orientation, questions have arisen about how accountable school officials should be for stopping bullying.

Barbara Coloroso, a nationally known anti-bullying consultant, had been contacted by South Hadley, Mass., school officials months before Phoebe Prince’s hanging death, after a young boy in nearby Springfield killed himself. Ms. Coloroso said school officials made mistakes by failing to stop the bullying and, after Ms. Prince hanged herself, by allowing at least some of the students involved to continue to attend classes and a school dance with no...