Print edition: 
WICHITA — About 25 people held signs and marched in front of the Wichita school district administration building Wednesday, calling for school officials to get tougher on bullying.
"I was bullied horribly in middle school. It happens to so many kids," said Elle West, 18, who graduated from Northeast Magnet High School in May.
"When the kids or the parents go to the teachers, counselors or principals, they just ignore it or else give the bully a slap on the wrist, and it just continues," she said.
The protest came a week after Rhianna Morawitz, a 14-year-old freshman at Northeast, committed suicide. Family members and friends say she was frustrated and depressed after being called names and threatened by classmates.
Rhianna's death has prompted calls for tougher measures against school bullies or for state laws requiring administrators to better track reports of bullying. West and others have termed the movement "Rhianna's Law," though there is no specific law proposed yet.
Rhianna's father, Rick Morawitz, attended Wednesday's protest at the Alvin E. Morris Administrative Center, 201 N. Water. He held a sign that read, "Victimized twice: 1. By bullies.; 2. By the Wichita public school system."
Holding the sign and waving at passing traffic, Morawitz said he's certain his daughter's suicide was prompted at least in part by bullies who taunted and insulted her.
School officials said last week that administrators at Northeast Magnet were "made aware of a conflict involving several students" prior to Rhianna's death. Because of student privacy concerns, officials did not say whether any specific action was taken in response to the conflict.
Debbie McKenna, executive director of safety services for Wichita schools, said incidents of bullying logged by principals are going down — 357 districtwide last year compared with 469 in 2009-10 — but that officials take every report seriously.
"So much of bullying is a he-said/she-said type thing," McKenna said. "Our principals are trained to respond, to find out what's truthful and to determine whether that meets the definition of bullying or whether it's peer conflict or something else."
Cecil McDonald, a 42-year-old Wichita man who attended Wednesday's protest, said he participated because he was bullied as a student in Arkansas City and wants to see tougher measures against it throughout Kansas.
"If schools don't do anything about it, it's going to continue and it's going to get worse," McDonald said. "Schools are the first place we need to address, because that's a place where kids should be safe."
