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Bullied Los Osos teen commits suicide

April 7, 2014
Nailani Buchholz

Nailani Buchholz

By KAREN VELIE

A bullied 13-year-old Los Osos girl died Thursday after a suicide bid following years of torment.

On March 29, while her mother was making barbecue and her father was working on his car, Nailani Buchholz wrote her parent’s a note and then hanged herself. For the next five days, the straight “A” Los Osos Middle School student clung to life before passing away just three weeks after turning 13.

Nailani Buchholtz grew up on the Central Coast as part of a close-knit family. And unlike many middle school students, Nailani Buchholtz wrote on Facebook and in her notebooks about what a great family she had.

Nevertheless, since elementary school, some of her classmates had taunted her about her weight and physical appearance. Though her parents were unaware of the middle school bullying, they knew that as early as fourth grade students were calling her derogatory names, said Bill Buchholtz, the teen’s father.

“We knew she was working through some self-esteem issues, she was a chunky little girl,” Bill Buchholtz said.

Nailani Buchholz

Nailani Buchholz

During fourth grade at Baywood Elementary, Nailani Buchholz asked her parents if she could stay home, to avoid the bullying. Baywood Elementary has a zero tolerance for bullying of any kind. School officials are not responding to questions about Nailani Buchholz noting confidentiality rules.

The next year, in fifth grade, Nailani Buchholz changed her eating habits and lost weight. Even so, some of her fellow students continued to taunt her with names such as ugly and fat. In her journal, Nailani wrote about a boy she had a crush on, how he walked her home from school, and that he called her fat, a family member said.

During the past year, Nailani Buchholz followed several social media posters who spoke of suicide. The teen also posted several videos on Vinebox in which her poor self-image is apparent.

“These people are staring at me, look, look, she’s so ugly,” Nailani Buchholz said in one of the videos.

Officials with the San Luis Coastal Unified School District and Los Osos Middle School said they are not disclosing at this time what actions, if any, they are planning to take regarding the bullying of Nailani Buchholz or if they plan to provide grief counseling for students.

 


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Please, please out of respect for this family and this young girls friends, please take this

article down. It is inaccurate. If you won’t take it down at least take the photos and her name out of it.

She was barely 13 years old…have a little compassion. Who is the bully here??


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Too bad you had to ask.


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Yea, so we should just ignore that this happened, not discuss it and let it happen again.


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Not everything should be up for discussion and this is one of those everythngs. Would we discuss your child’s problems with self abuse? No, we shouldn’t.


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“self abuse”, ah I would say that this went far beyond “self abuse”. The father who told CCN about the kids giving his daughter a hard time and about her not wanting to go to school at times despite being a bright student seems to have changed his story about the bullying and what I’m reading over at The Tribune doesn’t add up in fact it sounds obtuse. To claim that it was about confusion surrounding growing up and becoming a teenager doesn’t cut it. Something here went very wrong…….Yes this should be open to discussion. Many of us have teens in the local school system.


Why did this happen?


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Nancy, it doesn’t take a village, it takes a good parenting. Not our business.


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The Bully(s) are the cowards who do nothing (school admin) in fear lawsuits from snot nosed parents who continue to believe “not my little Johnny” he’d never do anything like that. It happens daily, they do nothing and when a kid take a stand and fights back they get suspended, expelled or otherwise. Time to pull your heads out your buttocks, we have a failed system and kids are getting punished for it.


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I started reading news on this site after deciding the Tribune site was not cutting it. My thought when reading this story was that it was odd that a suicide was being reported as they are usually kept somewhat private, and it was even odder that the young girls name and picture was being used in the story. This morning I see that the Tribune has a different story (much more respectful to the family) and that the family is not really on board with this CCN report.


I have noticed that CCN seems intent on sensationalizing every story and that the posters that typically respond here are mostly extremists that seem to feed on the negativity. If it is true that CCN released this story without the full backing of the grieving family, then this news site has sunk to new lows and needs to be called out on it. It is one thing to question government as that is the duty of citizens, but what possible reason is there to run this story?


I am very saddened that these parents are dealing with a tragedy like this and now have to deal with responding to what looks to be an irresponsible story.


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Go to the tribunes site for the real story CCN’s facts are wrong/fabricated.


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So I have heard disturbing stories that the family did not want this posted and that many people have posted to let you know that, including the family, and that their posts were deleted. I find that hard to believe but am posting this to see if mine is deleted too. If it is, I can’t trust your journalism anymore. thanks


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We need as a community to protest the lack of action by Los Osos Middle School of this

tragedy The Principal Dr. Pruitt and the Vice-Principal Mr. Blum ought to resign. As long our community does nothing, they will do nothing. The Vice-Principal is responsible for student

behavior as is the Principal.

Literally, Friday morning on the sidewalk in front of the school bring signs demanding the

resignation of this administration. Bullying at LOMS has been an accepted culture for many

years, even a suicideis not spurring action! WE can not, should not, accept this any longer!

This is not radical, we need to protect the children of our community as evidently the

school administration is not.

PLEASE, we must join together, meet at 7:30 AM and make a statement with signs, bullying can not continue with the school’s tolerance that has led to a 13 year old girl’s death. Show

compassion, show intolerance, send a message to Los Osos Middle School and the

county that this inaction of controlling bullying can not continue.

I will look for who will join, who will protest the inaction of the Los Osos Middle School

administration?


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Looks like this was posted last night and released this morning. The author didn’t have a chance to know the truth.


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New rule: Publish the names of the Bullies. I do not give a Hoot if they are minors. If they are capable of inflicting injury (psychological) to the point that it costs a human life, then they need to be called out on it.


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The video on Nailani’s Vine account quoted in the article where she says “These people are staring at me, look, look, she’s so ugly” is labeled with the hashtags #comedy and #brentrivera. It’s a parody video of internet celebrity Brent Rivera, not the girl expressing her poor self image. It’s very poor journalism to make that claim.


The father’s quote “she was a chunky little girl” throws up some red flags to me. A normal person in the father’s position would not use a word like chunky that’s exactly the same word her bullies probably used. My guess is one or both of her parents were emotionally abusive and pressured her about her weight.


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I contacted the principal at Los Osos Middle School a little over 1 year ago about a bullying situation that my daughter was involved in. Two female students at LOMS were verbally attacking my daughter on a daily basis for a few months. When I brought this info to the principal, and asked for him to have a chat with the two offenders about it, he said that there was nothing he could do about it, and that he WOULDN’T do anything about it. It was very frustrating. He finally changed his tune, and agreed to have a talk with the offenders, ONLY after I had a child psychologist contact him about the situation, and threatened him with taking the story to the media and exposing his lack of action concerning bullying at his school.

I have seen a lack of concern from school officials at other schools when it comes to bullying as well. Yeah they all say they have a “zero bullying tolerance,” but when it comes down to it, little, to no action is taken against the offenders enforcing that policy. Hopefully, at some point soon, school officials will see the importance of dealing with these situations in an appropriate manner.


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If my kids ever asked to stay home because they were being bullied at school, I would seriously consider pulling them out and transferring them. I’ve seen firsthand how little principals do to punish bullies. I’ve heard every excuse in the book to justify bullies’ actions: “he’s from a broken home…he has anger issues…she’s in counseling and will hopefully improve.” Meanwhile my kids and others were the victims of these kids’ inappropriate actions, mean words and physical grabbing and touching.


Parents: visit your kid’s school at lunch. See how much supervision there is. Get to know the kids and parents in your child’s class. CHECK THEIR FACEBOOK account/texts/e-mails. Don’t assume just because everything looks ok it is ok.


Poor Nailani. She obviously was in tremendous pain to end her life and I hope something positive can come out of her tragic death.


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Something that needs to be looked into (that nobody wants to acknowledge) is the “death culture” that is constantly reinforced by the public school system – actually encouraging kids to commit suicide by showing them how to do it and having them dwell excessively on it.


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