Governor faults S. Hadley officials in Phoebe Prince bullying case

Patrick discussed the Prince case on his monthly appearance on the "Ask the Governor" segment of the Jim and Margery Show. The Prince case has captured international attention and sparked intense criticism of school officials for not doing more to protect the 15-year-old freshman, who committed suicide Jan. 14.

Host Jim Braude introduced the topic by mentioning a story in today's Globe that reported Prince's appeal to administrators and detailed the alleged harassment she endured at the hands of two groups of teenagers angry over her relationships with two older male students.

Braude said he believed school officials displayed a "callous disregard" and asked Patrick if he was troubled that they haven't been charged criminally.

"They should certainly be held accountable," Patrick said, later adding that "it's incredibly upsetting to me that the adults don't seem to have acted like adults."

But Patrick said parents and other adults must also play a role in preventing bullying. Citing his support for anti-bullying legislation, he cautioned that it is "not a substitute for adults acting like adults."

"That is the parents of the bully, it's other adults in the school, it's adults in the community," he said. "All of us have a responsibility to step up and deal with this."

Patrick described his childhood in Chicago as an example, saying children were under close watch from parents and neighbors alike.

"There was all kinds of things we didn't have, but one thing we had was a very strong sense of community," he said. "That was a time when every child was under the jurisdiction of every single adult on the block. So if you messed up down the street in front of Ms. Jones, she would straighten you out as if you were hers, then call home so you got it two times."

"There's something about that responsibility that adults took for all the children that we've got to recapture not just in South Hadley, but all across the Commonwealth," he said.