This story contains descriptions of bullying and physical violence that may be triggering for some readers. Parents and educators can find anti-bullying resources here.
Brianna Harrelson’s son was attacked daily at Eastern Hills Middle School last year. Harrelson, a Harker Heights resident, said the attacks were physical, and that her son sometimes had to outrun up to four students. Harrelson told The Barbed Wire that one hit could be fatal. Her son, she said, has an enlarged spleen that’s vulnerable to rupture.
The bullying got to the point where Harrelson said her son was in danger of failing sixth grade, and Harrelson faced truancy charges for pulling him out of school to protect him. She tried warning school officials multiple times in 2024 and was advised to use the bullying reporting tool on Killeen ISD’s website.
“When I did, it went right back to the same administration that I had already been addressing it with for the same responses that I’ve already been getting,” Harrelson said at a school board meeting in March 2024. “It’s not actually reaching out to anyone above to address the issue.”
At that same meeting, Harrelson also told the board that a single fight was enough to cause a student’s death.
“They were going to lose a child if they didn’t fix the bullying issue,” Harrelson told The Barbed Wire in a recent interview. “And yet, almost exactly a year later, look what happens.”
On March 10, Serenity Baker was fatally stabbed by another student at Roy J. Smith Middle School. News of Baker’s death rattled the community. An emergency special school board meeting was called the next day, and parents signed up to give public comment. Gambrielle Montgomery-Seaton, who has a son at Smith, said she sees students fight every day from her backyard, and that she has repeatedly called both the district and city police departments about the lack of security but would never hear back.
“As a parent, this is frustrating because you asked me to do my part, and I’m doing that. And I’m trusting you all to keep my kid safe,” she told the board, noting that parents learned about the stabbing through social media posts. “And yesterday was completely unacceptable.”
In the weeks since, two other school stabbings have further set parents across Texas on edge about youth bullying and violence. Late last month, in Harris County, a Cypress Springs High School student was reportedly hospitalized after being stabbed in a restroom. On April 2, a Frisco ISD student athlete was fatally stabbed at a track meet.
In Killeen, 38 students withdrew from Smith, KWTX reported. The school’s principal, Fredrick Lilly, submitted his resignation effective June 30 before the district made media statements claiming they were going to fire him for cause.
At a board meeting on March 25, Baker’s mother, Glenda Jacobs, said no one from Killeen ISD immediately reached out to her — she heard about what happened to her 14-year-old daughter from another parent.
“Children should not be sent to school and not be able to come back home,” Jacobs said.
Dozens of other parents similarly have criticized Killeen ISD’s response to public safety issues across campuses — both online and at board meetings — saying that violence has been a systemic, longstanding issue in the district, and that not enough has been done to address it.
Lan Carter, a therapist who has a daughter attending Chaparral High School, serves clients ages 6 to 18 who mostly attend Killeen ISD schools. She said more students have shared their concerns about being bullied with her.
“They want to be pulled out of school. They don’t want to go to school anymore,” Carter said. “They see it as a never-ending cycle, and they’re just miserable.”
Citing ongoing investigations on its crisis response page, Killeen ISD cannot confirm whether the stabbing incident at Smith was related to bullying. The district said neither student involved used the district’s bullying reporting tool. However, Darante Simmons, the father of the student accused of the stabbing, Anjail Simmons, said his daughter endured “two to three years” of “verbal threats and bullying, even having a gun pulled on her,” the Killeen Daily Herald reported. Simmons told the outlet that he has filed multiple reports with Killeen ISD, and a report with Killeen Police Department, but never received a response.
At the March 25 board meeting, Jacobs said her daughter often called her because she felt unsafe in school. While the district claimed that four staff members responded to Baker “within seconds” to give basic medical aid after she was stabbed with a 3.5-inch tactical folding knife, Jacobs said otherwise.
“My baby sat there and bled out — her friends were holding her and no one else,” Jacobs said. “Where was the staff, where was the faculty, and where was the security?”
In an email to The Barbed Wire, the district confirmed that Superintendent Jo Ann Fey met with Jacobs after the board meeting to hear her concerns. The Killeen ISD Board of Trustees also approved a resolution that outlines the district’s commitment to increasing security and keeping students, staff, and community members safe.
Killeen ISD did not specify to The Barbed Wire what safety measures it plans to implement district-wide, or how else officials are addressing issues of bullying and violence, but recommended checking its website for frequently asked questions about the investigation.
“KISD has been intensely reviewing all safety measures, has taken a number of steps and is constantly considering what else can be done to create the safest possible learning environment for our students, teachers, staff, visitors and anyone who is on one of our campuses or at any KISD event,” said Karen Rudolph, executive director of communications and marketing at Killeen ISD.
Rudolph also told The Barbed Wire that campus administrators, including principals and assistant principals, primarily handle the bullying reports at their respective schools. She said these investigations are conducted at the campus level.
For Carter, the therapist, bullying remains a district-wide issue because policies aren’t uniformly enforced in all schools. She said school staff need to be more proactive in addressing bullying complaints.
“It should be within 24 hours, while it’s fresh in their mind,” Carter said.
According to the district’s page on anti-bullying and cyberbullying, bullying investigations “should be completed within five district business days,” and a campus administrator will alert parents if more time is needed.
In a news conference on April 2, the district superintendent said she’d made “a recommendation to the board for a proposed termination for good cause” of Smith’s principal. Lilly had sent his letter of resignation on March 28 with the intent to step down at the end of the school year, according to an email released by the district.
Lilly’s lawyer told 25 News that the principal’s resignation was “based on the premise that he had committed no wrongdoing” and attributed it to “mental anguish,” but Killeen ISD rejected it and requested Lilly to resign by April 15 instead. The district did not give The Barbed Wire an updated statement about Lilly’s termination. Lilly also did not respond to The Barbed Wire’s messages and emails requesting an interview. Killeen ISD named Bobbie Reeders as the interim principal of Smith on April 7.
“Throughout my tenure, I have dedicated myself to creating a safe, nurturing, and inclusive environment for every student,” Lilly said on Facebook. “It is disheartening that instead of acknowledging the systemic safety concerns I repeatedly brought to their attention — including on the day of the unfortunate incident — the district has chosen to scapegoat me.”
Harrelson, whose son was bullied at Eastern Hills last year, claims Killeen ISD’s public safety response hasn’t improved since the stabbing incident at Smith. Her seventh-grade nephew started homeschool last week, she said, after persistent bullying from another student at Palo Alto Middle School. According to Harrelson, the student told her nephew that he would be bringing a knife to school. Harrelson said her nephew went to the assistant principal’s office, filled out a form, and was sent back to class with the same student who reportedly threatened to kill him.
Harrelson’s nephew submitted multiple reports about verbal harassment from the student before, but these were not investigated, she said. Until now, Harrelson said, she has not been able to set up a meeting with the superintendent to discuss her family’s experiences.
“This is the same behavior that’s happening,” Harrelson said, emphasizing that this happened weeks after the stabbing at Smith. “They did not protect him.”
In February 2023, a kindergarten teacher at Skipcha Elementary School moved the chair Joseph Baez’s 6-year-old son was sitting in, which caused him to fall to the floor, Baez first told the Killeen Daily Herald. According to Baez, the teacher then made his son face the wall as punishment.
For Baez, “bullying is bullying,” and the issue doesn’t just happen between students. He encouraged more parents to show up to board meetings and make their voices heard.
“KISD is in crisis. KISD is in turmoil… This is not just a recent thing that’s been happening,” Baez told The Barbed Wire. “These things have been going back for years. For years.”
