A third-party committee investigating the 2019 suicide of a third-year junior high school boy in Kawasaki has found he was bullied by classmates and that his school's response was also at fault, the city's board of education said on the 13th.
The board published the committee's report on the 13th. The panel said the cause of the suicide was hard to pin down. It concluded the bullying could not be ruled out as one gateway to the process that led to his death, Kyodo News reported.
According to the report, several classmates called the boy names such as "gloomy" and "creepy." He was troubled by his friendships. There was no clear complaint of bullying and no suicide note.
School knew of self-harm
His homeroom teacher and others at the school knew he had harmed himself. The report took the school to task, saying its support for the boy was insufficient.
Because the panel has now faulted how the school handled the case, the board of education and the school face questions they will have to answer.