In July, Gov. Dannel Malloy signed a new bill into law, Public Act 11-232, strengthening the state’s anti-bullying legislation, three years after one Brookfield family was forever scared by the acts of bullies.

Brookfield residents Debbie and Alan Berman were in attendance when Malloy signed the bill, something they had advocated hard for in memory of their adoptive daughter, Alexa, who was about to enter her freshman year at Brookfield High School (BHS) when she took her own life at the age of 14 in August 2008.

Debbie Berman said her daughter did not have a large group of friends, but that she “wanted her friendships to be more significant.”

Alexa was particularly close to one friend, however through eighth grade and into the summer of 2008 the other girl had grown apart from Alexa and began to tease her with another girl their age, both at school and online.

“They would talk about her and ignore her at school and would be IMing [instant messaging] her, telling her she needed to change,” Berman said. “She was really, really sensitive,” she continued, adding that Alexa “went through the entire year hardly talking to anyone” at school.

Bullying has always been around, but “it’s 24/7 now,” Alexa’s father, Alan Berman, said. “It used to be that kids could escape from it by going home at the end of the day.”

The new bullying bill approaches the issue on multiple fronts, with new mandatory training for all school staff (not just teachers and administrators) on how to recognize bullying, shortened timeframes in which the schools have to report and act on cases and a new impetus on administrators to get involved even when the bullying is taking place off school grounds.

“There’s always been a bill on the books,” said Debbie, who works as a reading specialist at Huckleberry Hill Elementary School (HHES). “There’s always been a bullying policy but this was set up to strengthen the laws that are already in place,” including the first legislation on cyber-bullying.

“The computer is used as a weapon,” she said. “It’s very difficult to control it because in a split second anything can go out to millions of people.”

Under the new regulations, if schools are alerted to bullying behavior online, even outside of school, they are required to report it to the parents and take immediate action, within 48 hours.

Whisconier Middle School (WMS) Principal Deane Renda, who was an assistant principal at the school in 2008, explained that the bullying has to have a direct affect on the student’s ability to learn and be comfortable at school.

“If it’s affecting the student’s ability to pay attention in class, to sit and eat in the cafeteria, if they’re afraid to go to the bathroom” because of bullying taking place outside of school, “then we need to address it,” he said.

Renda said the school is also following the other new regulations in the law, such as a presentation on identifying bullying for faculty and staff at the beginning of the year and a parents’ night to inform them about online bullying and open communication.

“It doesn’t happen in front of you or I,” he said. “You have to be aware of facial expressions, of body language.”

But the symptoms don’t always show at school, as was the case with Alexa.

“The signs weren’t glaring,” Renda said.  “She made your day when you saw her. And she went out of her way to say ‘hi,’” which is unusual for kids that age, he added.

“We need help at home — that’s the No. 1 way of getting information to us,” he said, urging parents to “constantly talk to your children” and leave the computer in an open area of the house. “It takes a whole community to police it.”

“We’re not blaming the school system by any means,” Alan Berman said. “It’s when they’re out of the classroom and in social settings or online that it is most prevalent.”

“We didn’t think about the schools, it wasn’t happening in school,” Debbie Berman said, though in retrospect she said they probably should have gotten the schools involved.

“There was no way for any teacher to know,” she said, adding, “There’s always an underlying thing going on with suicides.”

Alexa was diagnosed with depression and Attachment Disorder and began going to therapy in early seventh grade.

“I don’t blame them 100 percent,” Debbie said of the girls who bullied Alexa. “Did she have issues, yes, but she would have worked through that — she was young. She just didn’t want to go to high school.”

Fighting Bullying in the Modern Age

“It can be hard for a lot of kids at this age level to find their niche,” Renda said, as the transition through middle school into high school is generally when youths form their personal identity.

Helping students through the transition requires helping potential bullies to “understand how to treat other people and understand people for who they are” and teaching the bullied “ways and strategies to deal with these situations because they are going to happen,” he said, but policing can be difficult.

In serious, confirmed bullying cases, students can be automatically suspended, especially if there is a physical aspect, Renda explained, however that is generally held as a last resort.

“There’s a difference between mean spirited and bullying,” he explained, stating that the administrators and counselors don’t see much malicious bullying going on in the schools. “Sometimes it just takes the guidance counselors just pulling them in for a talk.”

“We’re never going to get rid of it [bullying], but we need to find ways to make sure this doesn’t happen again in the future,” Renda said of Alexa’s situation.

“Kids have to know there are expectations and limitations,” he said, urging parents to “use your teachable moments and say, ‘Remember that time and how bad you felt,’ and try to educate kids in what to do in situations.”

“How can you regulate it?” Debbie Berman asserted. “There’s a big prey zone — nobody can make these girls be friends with her, but it’s the meanness.”

“We don’t want to go completely on the other end,” she added. “There’s certainly a category of kids just being mean and not bullying,” but it is the constant harassment that needs to be identified and stopped.

“It’s when it happens a lot over time and really eats away at your soul,” she said. “And that’s what happened to Alexa, it ate away at her soul.”

“This wasn’t this big splashy publicized thing,” Berman said, “It was a quiet suicide, the type that are done each and every day.”

The Bermans and many other Brookfield and area residents will be participating in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) Out of the Darkness Community Walk beginning at Brookfield Town Hall on Sunday, September 18. (Sign in begins at 9 a.m.)

Berman encouraged people with questions or concerns to reach out to AFSP and a new support group, Healing Hearts in Danbury, for survivors of suicide loss, as well as Brookfield ACTS, also known as the Brookfield Coalition for Suicide Prevention, which was established shortly after Alexa’s death.

“She was really sensitive, so giving, so great with other people,” she said. “She took care of everyone but herself.”