Lansing (Mich.) district pays $500,000 to family of student who killed himself after being bullied
The family of a 13-year-old Lansing, Mich., high school student who took his own life after being bullied at school, has reached a $500,000 settlement with Lansing School District.
The Lansing State Journal reports that Michael Martin, a student at Everett High School in Lansing, died on Jan. 25, 2019. He'd been bullied for months before his death, says his mother, Joanna Wohlfert. She says that she tried in vain to get school staff and Dean Transportation, the company that provides bus services for the district, to deal with bullying on the school bus and at Everett.
Court documents show that Ingham County Probate Court Judge Richard Garcia approved a settlement that pays $332,182 to Michael's estate and $167,818 to Wohlfert's attorneys.
As part of the settlement, the district did not admit liability.
Wohlfert is not permitted to discuss the terms of the settlement and declined to comment.
It's unclear if the settlement has been paid or how much of the settlement might be covered by the district's insurers. The district has an annual general fund budget of about $160 million.
Nearly half the students interviewed for a district investigation after Michael's death said they witnessed or heard about students calling Michael names or shoving him at school.
Several also said they noticed a change in Michael’s behavior in the months before his death. Several of Michael’s teachers said they also noticed those changes. They had talked about Michael in December 2018 and submitted a written referral that month to the school's Assistant Principal Priscilla Ellis, asking that Michael receive some kind of intervention.
