Just a few weeks ago a young Cheyenne boy took his own life. His family says bullying was the cause.
We've received countless emails and messages on our facebook from concerned parents of bullied kids. One who said that could have been his son.
"He just didn't want to go at all, it was just a fight to get him to go to school," said Mark McCoy, the father of 12-year-old Bret, now a student of K-12 Online.
Though he loves school now, if you talked to Bret just a year ago, going to school was filled with fear.
"A couple of them pushed me down and dragged me over to where the others were, and then they would start fighting with me," said Bret.
"I showed up to have lunch with Bret one day and I got there ahead of school recess," said Bret's dad, Mark. "I seen a group of boys come out and hid in the corner and as soon as Bret came out they all went running towards him and started pushing him down and choking him."
That was when Bret's dad said enough. "We went ahead and called K12 and they said it would take a couple days to get it done."
Though Gilcrest's principal wasn't able to speak in detail about Bret's situation due to student privacy, he said policies are in place to help students who feel bullied.
"We take a statement from the student and we take a statement from the other students, and typically what we'll do is bring the students together along with any school personnel that may have witnessed it or other students that witnessed it, and then we examine all the evidence," said Principal Petty.
He says parents play a big part in their students education.
"The importance of parental involvement in your child's education is phenomenal, you have to provide a safe environment for your kids to come talk to you and the kids have to know that they're supported, and the school's supported."
As for Bret and his family, he says he enjoys school more than ever now that his classroom's in his home and his parent's say they feel he's above and beyond where he was in a traditional classroom.
