This once vivacious SC 12-year-old was allegedly almost bullied to death. Here’s her story

At 12, Kelaia Turner was a skilled pianist, had a business selling earrings and bracelets she made and had auditioned for Nickelodeon.

Her most immediate goal was to play for the soccer team at her school Dr. Phinnize J. Fisher Middle School in Greenville. Ultimately she wanted to be a children’s book illustrator and to make super funky cakes.

She had allegedly been bullied in elementary school when she started to wear her hair natural but that was nothing compared to what would come in middle school.

Almost from the start of 6th grade, a group of five or six students, mostly girls, allegedly began to call her names.

Man, trans, mustache face, fat black ugly, nappy head.

Once in class, she was allegedly called a roach and when the students asked the teacher who was a roach, the teacher pointed to Kelaia.

She was involved in a fight. Shoved into a locker. Her beloved Polo jacket, royal blue with a pink horse, was thrown in the trash and water poured over it. Students mocked her for liking Taylor Swift. “What black girl likes Taylor Swift?” they said allegedly.

It went on for more than a year.

Each time, Kelaia’s mother, Ty Turner, contacted the school. She went for meetings, she said in an interview with The State. She emailed. She tried through the normal process to protect her daughter.

Now the family is suing the school as well as some teachers and administrators because Kelaia tried to kill herself in March 2023. She hung herself with a belt attached to her bunk bed and nearly succeeded.

“She was dead for 8 minutes,” Turner said.

An MRI showed every part of her brain had been deprived of oxygen and she is in a vegetative state, doctors said likely for life.

Greenville County Schools has denied the allegations that teachers and staff did not take appropriate action.

“When these complaints were made, they were thoroughly investigated and appropriate communication took place. Greenville County Schools maintain a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, which we are confident will be demonstrated in court,” the school district said in a statement.

The district added: “It is important to remember that lawsuits are not statements of fact; they reflect allegations representing one side of a story.”

Other lawsuits

Two other lawsuits are pending against Greenville County Schools over alleging bullying. One involves a 5th grade student at Fountain Inn Elementary, whose family maintains they reported bullying from another student to no avail and then the student was attacked in the school media center/library, the lawsuit says.

“M.B. made demeaning and harassing comments to K.H. about his family. M.B. then violently attacked K.H. in the media center/library, while the School staff stood drinking coffee,” the lawsuit says.

He was on the ground trying to cover his head and face and was punched at least six times before a media specialist came near. The child again attacked the student as he walked away.

No school district employee tried to stop the attack, the lawsuit says.

The attacker remained at the school and the boy who was attacked was moved to another class away from his friends, the lawsuit says,

Kelley R. Leddy of the Lexington-based Salley Law Firm who is representing the plaintiff, said in a statement, “During school hours, when children have the most exposure to their peers and are consequently most susceptible to bullying, schools are in the best position to intervene and protect them. Bullying is incredibly detrimental to a child’s mental health, and we must hold those who are best positioned to identify bullying and protect children accountable when they fail to do so.”

Also pending is a case involving a 9th grade Greenville High female student who, the lawsuit says, was called a slave. Bullying took place in the classroom during instructional time, school cafeteria, and on or near the school’s campus, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit alleges administrators told the student not to report bullying. The parents were not told either, the lawsuit says.

“On or about September 20, 2022, “J.W.” was harassed, threatened, and assaulted by a group of female students at Greenville High,” the lawsuit says. “These students, among other things, threatened to physically attack and kill “J.W.” by way of a “gang-style” beating.”

The student was attacked again and in one instance the attacker had a gun, the lawsuit says.

In a court filing, the district has denied the allegations.

Kelaia’s story

According to its South Carolina Report Card from the state Department of Education, last year Phinnize J. Fisher Middle School had the third highest number of bullying reports among middle schools in Greenville County. Those numbers are reported by the school district itself.

Turner said district officials can say zero tolerance all it wants but her experience is different. She worked across the street at Hubbell when her daughter was a student there and made her presence known. Kelaia herself sent emails to faculty asking what she could do differently to get the bullying to stop.

She asked her mother for a What Would Jesus Do bracelet and when her mother asked her why, she said, “to help me remember when people are messing with me.”

“It was on her wrist when I found her hanging,” Turner said.

Turner has started a nonprofit organization to not only bring attention to the problem of bullying but also to work with schools and others to do something about it.

“It’s an epidemic,” she said.

And a mental health problem. Children do not become bullies on their own. Something has gone awry in their lives — homelessness, hunger, being bullied at home.

Kelaia’s Kause (Keeping Accountability Uniting Students & Educating) was founded, Turner said, to ensure no other family goes through what hers has.

How does an accomplished, seemingly strong young girl end up trying to kill herself? In the week before the suicide attempt, Kelaia told a friend she felt empty inside. The bullying had taken a toll.

She spent 31 days in the ICU, during which she marked her 13th birthday, and 70 more in the hospital.

Turner has quit her manager’s job to care for Kelaia and to nurture her nonprofit. Her husband has returned to truck driving. They have started a gofundme page to raise money for a van to transport Kelaia, which would be life changing.

Turner said despite the doctors’ prognosis that Kelaia could live in a vegetative state for 30 to 40 years, she thinks Kelaia has many more chapters of life to live.

“People need to be aware of the ability to affect other people,” she said. “Kindness is a choice. Happiness is a choice.”