On October 18th, Mr. John Halligan came to our school to talk about his story, and how it changed his life forever. His son Ryan Halligan committed suicide at the age of thirteen after being bullied for almost four years. Mr. Halligan travels cross country putting his story in the hands of children and their parents in hopes that by educating others he can prevent people from feeling the pain he does. In his presentation he tells of what he went through, from watching his child being bullied and the pain of not being able to do anything.

Ryan first started being bullied in the fifth grade, and it carried on until sixth grade. One day, Ryan came home to his Dad asking to learn how to defend himself. Over the next few months Ryan and Mr. Halligan learned how to fight in the basement. Eventually, Ryan got into a fist fight with the bully, and Ryan came home telling his Dad he thought it was over. Over the next two years Mr. Halligan thought things were good, and Ryan seemed happy again. The summer before eighth grade Ryan was spending a lot of time on his computer, chatting to friends online. Mr. Halligan thought nothing of it; he trusted Ryan. But in the beginning of eighth grade, things started to get bad again. Ryan came home in bad moods, sad and angry. It got worse, but Mr. Halligan wasn’t aware of the magnitude of it until that terrible phone call in October of 2003.

Mr. Halligan decided that he had to do something so that others wouldn’t have to go through what his son did. Only seven months after Ryan passed, he got a Bullying Prevention law passed. This law established mandatory bullying prevention procedures for all schools in the state of Vermont. In April of 2006, he got a bill passed that presented the idea of teaching kids about signs of depression and how to respond to the risk of suicide. All of these laws were only enacted in the state of Vermont.

This assembly will hopefully light a spark of awareness, and demote bullies. So remember next time you see something happen, don’t be the bystander.