The Web of Cyberbullying

(P1) King High School (KHS) is a public high school within the Metro City School District (MCSD), located in Metro City in the state of New Columbia, where 5,125 students are enrolled. Alex Billings and C.J. Pearson attended KHS's freshmen orientation from August 16th-18th, 2010. During this orientation Billings and Pearson beame friendly. By the conclusion of the orientation, they had exchanged cell phone numbers, as well as "friended" each other on MyFace, a popular social networking site. On August 23rd, 2010, Billings and Pearson began classes at KHS. They were both in the same freshman English class. 

(P2) At the end of the first week of school, on the evening of August 27th, Billings and Pearson met at a musical all-ages club. Following this evening, over the course of three months, Billings and Pearson exchanged over 2,400 text messages through their cellular phones. Some of these text messages were sent during KHS school hours, others were sent outside of school hours. KHS prohibits students from bringing cell phones to campus. The two also had significant interaction through MyFace. Students are prohibited from accessing MyFace from KHS computers. In fact, the KHS administration blocks MyFace on all school computers. 

(P3) On November 1st, 2010, KHS's ninth grade counselor, Mr/Ms. Cook, called Billings into his/her office to discuss Billings' poor attendance and grades. During this conversation, Billings revealed to Cook that (s)he was unable to participate fully in school because of a problem with Pearson. Cook told Billings that she/he would investigate the matter and asked Billings to report back to him/her if the problem continued or worsened. Billings never spoke to Cook about Pearson again. On the same day, Cook emailed Principal Li about her conversation with Alex. On November 10th, 2010, Cook spoke to Pearson regarding Alex. 

(P4) On December 1st, 2010, Francis Billings, Alex's parent, learned of Pearson's MyFace posting about Alex. At this time, Francis Billings initiated a discussion with Alex about the MyFace postings. On the same day, Alex and Francis Billings met with LHS Principal Li. During the meeting, Francis Billings angrily confronted Principal Li about Pearson's alleged bullying of Billings and showed Principal Li some of the text messages and MyFace postings. 

(P5) Following this conversation, Francis withdrew Alex from KHS. On the same day, the Billings' visited St. Joseph Academy (SJA) and spoke with Dr. Gabriel/Gabriella Rodriguez, the SJA school psychologist. Following this conversation, Francis enrolled Alex at SJA. Alex began attending SJA the following week, on December 6th, 2010. SJA agreed to charge Billings $15,000 in tuition for the remainder of the 2010-2011 school year and $20,000 a year thereafter. The following day, Francis Billings went to Metro City Superior Court and received a Temporary Restraining Order prohibiting Pearson from contacting Alex. 

(P6) Alex Billings began seeing Dr. Synder, a therapist, twice a week. Snyder charges $200 a visit and recommends treatment for one year, for a total cost of $20,800.