‘Wonderful’ Girl Commits Suicide After School Beating and Online Taunts From Her Assailants

New Jersey Central Regional High accused of sweeping serious bullying under the rug and suspending those victims who report attacks for 'antagonizing' the bullies

Central Regional High School in New Jersey has been accused of having a "culture of violence" its administration has tolerated. File photo. Photos.com

Adriana Kuch saved a girl from drowning in a swimming pool, her 15-year-old friend Meredith told The Epoch Times.

“Adriana was one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met. We went to grade school together when she first moved here,” Meredith said. “She was awesome. She would do anything for anyone.”

On Feb. 1, four students at Central Regional High School (CRHS) in Bayville, New Jersey, beat up Adriana and filmed the event. They posted the attack on social media during school hours.

Adriana Kuch, in a photo taken near Bayville, N.J. Courtesy of Meredith

Two days later, her parents discovered the 14-year-old’s lifeless body.

According to those close to Adriana, the school bears some responsibility for her death because it failed to discipline bullies.

The school superintendent alleged that Adriana had a drug problem and a poor relationship with her father. But a friend says those statements aren’t true.

Bullying Problems

According to Meredith, CRHS has a vicious bullying problem that school administrators won’t tackle.

“A lot of the kids are very violent,” Meredith said. “If you say the wrong thing to the wrong person, you‘ll get your head smashed into a locker, or you’ll get beat up in the hallways, or have horrible things sent to you on any social media that you’re on.”

Teachers do nothing to stop the bullying, she added. Often, students who report bullying get suspended for “antagonizing” bullies, she said.

“The teachers tell you, ‘Maybe you should go make better friends,’ and tell you to block the people on social media,” Meredith said.

But these strategies don’t work, she said.

Bullies seek out their victims in school and online, Meredith said. If they’re blocked, they make dummy accounts and harass their victims again. If that doesn’t work, they recruit friends to message victims. Sometimes they even make fake social media pages to destroy victims’ reputations.

“There have been situations at my school where people have made profiles about people bullied, like spreading their name and posting horrible pictures of them,” said Meredith.

Meredith said that even while grieving her friend’s death, she was eager to talk to The Epoch Times because the high school acted cruelly, and she wants people to know.

“This is what she would want,” said Meredith of her friend. “The school getting what they deserve.”

A Vicious Attack

In the attack, four girls set upon Adriana while she walked through the school with her boyfriend.

The beating lasted less than a minute but left her with bruises all over her body. They beat her with a water bottle.

Her boyfriend tried to fight back but was outnumbered. A teacher also intervened to stop the attack.

A photo taken afterward shows Adriana with wide eyes, swollen lips, and a bruised nose.

“That’s what you get, you stupid [expletive],” one attacker says in the video.

Then the bullies broadcasted Adriana’s humiliation. During school hours, they posted a video of their attack on social media.

As the video spread, the bullies used it to intimidate her again. On Feb. 3, one girl messaged Adriana to mock her for being beaten, according to the New York Post.

A few hours later, Adriana killed herself.

A school bus rolls down the street in Gainesville, Fla., on Jan. 23, 2023. Nanette Holt/The Epoch Times

After Adriana died, CRHS punished the four girls with suspension, according to NBC. But the report didn’t go to the police. It would be unjust to charge the bullies when they already faced school punishment, the school said.

“I don’t believe a police report was done. We normally just suspend. If a parent wants to press charges, they can with the police. But we’re not going to double-whammy a kid where they are suspended and then [get] police charges as well,” Superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides told local news outlet News 12 New Jersey.

Police later charged Adriana’s attackers with aggravated assault, another with harassment, and two others with conspiracy to commit aggravated assault.

Ignoring Brutality

According to Adriana’s father, Michael Kuch, the school failed to stop bullies from threatening his daughter.

“A kid is assaulted with a weapon, and it’s not their policy to call the police, or file a report?” Kuch told NBC News.

His daughter lived under harassment from bullies for “a couple of years,” he said. School administrators did nothing, he added.

He’s not the only one to bring such complaints to the school.

Olivia O'Dea, a former student at CRHS, left for a new school to escape bullies.

Adriana Kuch visits a store with her friend near Bayville, N.J. Courtesy of Meredith

Olivia was also beaten, and her assailants put the video online. She currently is suing the school.

“It’s actually rather remarkable how many fights occur. There’s been Instagram pages devoted to fights occurring in Central Regional School District,” Olivia’s lawyer, Jonathan Ettman, told The Epoch Times.

He added that CRHS has a “culture of violence” that its administration has tolerated.

“Unfortunately, it has now resulted in a young girl’s death,” he said.

A former teacher at CRHS, Daniel Keiser, said on social media that the school had a massive bullying problem but officials ignored it. He said intense bullying has plagued the children at the school for decades.

“It is tragic that this kind of thing had to happen to wake people up. There were days where I would break up three fights before homeroom even started,” he wrote in a post on Facebook.

“As a teacher there and a parent there who dealt with intense bullying, we would often plead with [the] administration to get things under control, and only one of them ever tried.

“They were notorious for brushing things under the carpet.”

After Adriana’s death, hundreds of students skipped class to protest against the school’s handling of bullying problems.

“Silence is compliance,” they’re heard chanting in audio recorded by NBC. Many of them held signs bearing exhortations that the school fix its bullying issues.

Blaming the Family

CRHS had a different take on the issue. Superintendent Parlapanides blamed Adriana’s father for taking actions that mentally destabilized her.

“After her mother’s suicide ... her grades and choices declined in 7th and 8th grade. We offered her drug rehab and mental services on five occasions, but her father refused every time,” Parlapanides told the Daily Mail.

Meredith said these statements were all untrue. Adriana was extremely close with her father and never mentioned doing drugs, she said.

“She wasn’t like that. And the fact that people are spreading that around is really grossly disgusting,” she said.

Students protest outside Central Regional High School the week of Feb. 5, 2023, in Bayville, N.J. Courtesy of Meredith

Meredith said it’s not the first time the superintendent had commented about a bullied student.

“Our ex-superintendent Parlapanides goes to attacking the families relentlessly because he is heartless,” she said. “Our school just pushes all of this stuff under the rug when anything PR-wise happens.”

Parlapanides resigned a few days after his comments about Adriana and her family went public.

The Epoch Times was unable to reach the Kuch family for comment.

CRHS officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The school’s website announced that it was working with local police “to ensure school safety” with “appropriate additional safeguards.”

The same website announcement told protesters to stay off school property during school hours.

Bullying Rules

A letter released by the Central Regional School District announced that the district follows New Jersey state mandates on bullying. Parlapanides, board president Denise Pavone-Wilson, and board vice president George Dohn all signed the letter.

“We understand the pain and stress that our students, parents, and staff are experiencing during this difficult time. Central Regional School District and all of its administration, faculty, and staff are committed to the students to make sure they are safe and learning in their classes,” the letter reads.

Meredith shared a list of demands made of the school by students. The list offered several measures the school could take to reconcile with students.

“The students of Central feel unseen and not cared for. We feel that the school doesn’t care about the bullying going on in the halls. We want to be able to go to school and not be nervous in the hallways,” the list began.

Meredith holds a sign demanding justice for her friend Adriana "Age" Kuch. The photo was taken the week of Feb. 5, 2023, in Bayville, N.J. Courtesy of Meredith

Their demands included printing the suicide hotline number on school IDs, providing additional anti-bullying resources, arranging visits to the school from anti-bullying groups, ensuring that hallway surveillance cameras are working, and holding a memorial service for Adriana. They urged school officials to “recognize their mistake.”

Policies for Punishment

The school’s policies mention that it’s mandatory to report some forms of physical violence.

“Some acts of harassment, intimidation, and bullying may be bias-related acts and potentially bias crimes and school officials must report to law enforcement officials either serious acts, or those which may be part of a larger pattern in accordance with the provisions of the Memorandum of Agreement Between Education and Law Enforcement Officials,” the school’s policy on bullying reads.

That policy includes consequences for bullies such as detention, deprivation of privileges, suspension, expulsion, and reports to law enforcement.

But it also has several remedial options for bullies that don’t offer punishment.

These include creating a “behavioral contract” with bullies, in which the bully has a “voice in the outcome”; explaining the “long-term negative consequences” of bullying; explaining what the future consequences might be if the bully chooses to continue; receiving “wrap-around support services”; and other options.

Another method the school suggested was to change schedules to separate bullies and victims.

Suicide on the Rise

In 2021, about one-third of high school girls considered suicide, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose studies show that almost all mental health markers have worsened since 2011.

Ettman blamed social media for the increase in violence among schoolchildren he has observed. Social media fame can motivate attacks, he said.

“Things have gotten exponentially worse with the advent of social media and sites like TikTok and reels. So there seems to be a penchant for planning premeditated attacks on students, so that they can be filmed and uploaded to social media sites,” he said.

Also, constant technology use has damaged everyone’s ability to communicate in person, Ettman said. This damage extends to children.

“Everybody’s lost the ability to have a sensible conversation,” he said. “Even at the elementary level, the kids act out in such a violent, abrupt way.”

In Ettman’s experience, school violence today is especially horrible among girls. He said he sees more girl-on-girl fights than fights between boys.

Whatever the cause of fights, schools often don’t discipline kids, Ettman said. If a school admits there was a fight, it makes school administrators look bad, he said.

This system results in bullies getting away with minimal penalties.

“It seems as if it’s a revolving, revolving door,” Ettman said.

Modern bullying is worse than bullying in the past, he added. With social media, students can face nonstop harassment that doesn’t end if they fight back against bullies.

“This is just ongoing, around the clock. Every moment, they’re dealing with it, because it’s being broadcast on social media,” he said. “It’s just a constant reminder of the humiliation that they’re dealing with. And that’s something that no adults can relate to.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Michael Kuch, Keiser, Adriana Kuch’s aunt Samantha Nye, and the CRHS school system. None had replied by press time.

If you have suicidal thoughts, call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 for free and confidential support. It’s open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For crisis support in Spanish, call 888-628-9454.