Imagine sending your 15-year-old son to school one morning, expecting him to return in the afternoon, only to receive a call that he has been shot and killed. Imagine, too, that before his death, he had reportedly complained about being bullied and had sought help from the very institution entrusted with his education and welfare.
For Thomas Frimpong, this is no longer an imagined situation. His son, Javits Badu Nkansah Frimpong, a 15-year-old Ghanaian boy living in the Bronx, New York, was fatally shot on 29 October 2026 while on his way to school. His father has said that Javits had complained about being bullied at school and that he had reported the problem to school authorities. There were also reports that two students had recently been suspended over the bullying allegations. However, the police have not established a motive for the shooting, and no confirmed link between the reported bullying and the killing has been made public.
That distinction matters. We must not rush to conclusions or assign legal responsibility without the facts. Yet, even as investigations continue, Javits’s death raises a question that educational institutions everywhere must confront: Are our schools doing enough to ensure that children are safe, not merely while they are learning, but throughout their school experience?
This is not simply a question about bullying. It is a question about the meaning of educational leadership, institutional responsibility and the duty to protect children.
When going to school becomes a source of anxiety
For many children, school is expected to be a place of discovery, friendship, personal development and opportunity. It should be an environment in which young people feel accepted, protected and confident enough to learn. But that is not every child’s experience.
Some students enter school each day with apprehension. They worry about being mocked, threatened, physically assaulted or humiliated by their peers. Others endure persistent intimidation but remain silent because they fear retaliation, believe that reporting will make matters worse or have lost confidence in the ability of adults to help them.
Bullying is sometimes dismissed as a normal part of growing up. Expressions such as “children will always be children” or “they should learn to stand up for themselves” can trivialise experiences that may have serious consequences for a child’s emotional, psychological and physical well-being.
The difficulty is that bullying rarely begins with a life-threatening incident. It may start with name-calling, exclusion, intimidation or repeated humiliation. When these behaviours are tolerated, they can become normalised within the school environment.
The Javits Frimpong tragedy should therefore compel us to look beyond the immediate circumstances of the shooting and examine the wider institutional question: when a child repeatedly reports that he or she is being targeted, what happens next?
Ghana cannot afford to treat school violence as somebody else’s problem
This conversation is not remote from Ghanaian educational realities. We have witnessed incidents that demonstrate how quickly conflict among students can escalate into devastating violence.
In September 2024, 18-year-old Edward Borketey Sackey, a final-year student of O’Reilly Senior High School in Accra, died after being stabbed by a fellow student following an altercation on campus. Media reports indicated that the disagreement reportedly began over whose father was wealthier before escalating into a physical confrontation. The Ghana Education Service subsequently announced an administrative investigation, while the police handled the criminal investigation.
The circumstances of Edward’s death were different from those surrounding Javits Frimpong. One involved a reported altercation on school premises; the other involved a fatal shooting outside school while a student was on his way to attend classes. We should not conflate the two incidents or assume that the same legal questions arise in each.
Nevertheless, both tragedies expose a concern that should trouble every parent, school leader and education policymaker: children can lose their lives in circumstances connected to their school experience, and our response must go beyond expressions of sympathy after the event.
A school cannot prevent every disagreement or guarantee that no harm will ever occur. But it must have systems for identifying risks, responding to threats, managing conflict and protecting learners from foreseeable harm. The question is not whether schools can eliminate every danger. It is whether they are taking reasonable and effective steps to prevent avoidable harm.
Punishing the bully is not necessarily the same as protecting the victim
One of the most important lessons emerging from the Javits Frimpong case is the need to distinguish between disciplining an alleged offender and safeguarding the child who reports being victimised.
Suspension may be an appropriate disciplinary response in some circumstances. But suspension alone does not necessarily resolve the underlying problem. It does not automatically establish whether the victim feels safe, whether the intimidation has stopped, whether there is a risk of retaliation or whether further support is required.
A school may be able to demonstrate that it acted against a student accused of bullying. Yet the more important safeguarding question remains: what did the school do to ensure that the affected child was protected?
This distinction should shape the way school leaders approach bullying complaints. Every report should trigger a process of careful assessment, documentation, investigation and follow-up. Where a threat is serious, the school must consider appropriate protective measures, engage parents or guardians, and refer matters to the relevant authorities where necessary.
There should also be a system for checking on the affected learner after disciplinary action has been taken. Has the intimidation stopped? Does the learner feel safe returning to class? Has the risk of retaliation been considered? Is counselling or other support necessary?
These are not administrative formalities. They are essential elements of responsible school governance.
The law must mean something in the life of a child
The protection of children is not merely a matter of good leadership or institutional goodwill. It is also a legal and human rights obligation.
Article 28 of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution recognises the rights of children and requires that their welfare and interests receive appropriate protection. The Children’s Act, 1998 (Act 560), similarly places the best interests of the child at the centre of decisions affecting children and provides a framework for their care and protection.
At the international level, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) reinforces these obligations. Article 3 establishes the best interests of the child as a primary consideration; Article 19 requires protection from physical or mental violence, injury or abuse; and Articles 28 and 29 address education and its broader developmental purposes.
These provisions should not be treated as legal language that exists only in statutes, policy documents and international reports. Their significance must be visible in the everyday operation of schools.
A child who is repeatedly threatened, humiliated or physically assaulted is not enjoying the full benefit of an educational environment that respects his or her dignity and development.
For school leaders, the implications are practical. Safeguarding must be reflected in school policies, reporting procedures, staff responsibilities, disciplinary processes and the supervision of learners. It must also inform the way complaints are received and handled.
Where a school has received credible information about a threat, the adequacy of its response may become an important legal and governance question. That does not mean that every incident occurring outside school automatically makes the school legally liable. Liability depends on the applicable law and the specific facts, including what the institution knew, what risks were reasonably foreseeable, what steps it took and whether any failure caused or contributed to the harm.
But the absence of automatic liability should never be confused with the absence of responsibility.
*Educational leadership must move beyond academic performance*
One concern in contemporary school management is the tendency to measure institutional success largely through examination results, academic rankings, discipline records and placement outcomes.
These indicators matter. But they do not tell the whole story.
A school may produce impressive academic results while some of its learners experience intimidation, fear and emotional distress. A school may have strict disciplinary rules but lack a functioning system for identifying and responding to bullying. It may celebrate academic excellence without paying sufficient attention to the conditions under which students are expected to achieve it.
This is where educational governance becomes particularly important.
School leadership is not simply about ensuring that teachers teach and students learn. It also involves creating and maintaining an environment in which learning can take place safely and with dignity.
Governing boards, headteachers, teachers, counsellors and education authorities must understand that safeguarding is a shared institutional responsibility. It cannot be left entirely to guidance and counselling coordinators or addressed only when a serious incident attracts public attention.
The Ghana Education Service and other relevant education regulators must also ensure that school safety policies are not merely documents prepared for administrative compliance. They must be implemented, monitored and evaluated.
A policy that exists on paper but is unknown to teachers, ignored by school leaders or inaccessible to students offers little practical protection.
Parents cannot afford to be spectators
Although schools have important safeguarding responsibilities, parents and guardians must also play their part.
Children do not always disclose what they experience at school. Some fear that speaking up will expose them to further ridicule. Others worry that their parents will confront the school or the alleged bully in ways that could make their situation worse.
Parents should therefore create an environment in which children feel comfortable discussing their school experiences. Changes in behaviour, reluctance to attend school, unexplained injuries, withdrawal from friends or persistent anxiety should not automatically be dismissed as ordinary adolescent behaviour.
More importantly, when a child reports bullying, parents should take the concern seriously and engage the school through appropriate channels. They should seek to understand what action has been taken and whether the child is safe.
At the same time, parents must resist the temptation to encourage retaliation. Violence cannot be the answer to violence. The objective must be to secure protection, accountability and appropriate support for every child involved.
What must change?
The tragedies involving Javits Frimpong and Edward Borketey Sackey should encourage a more deliberate approach to school safety in Ghana and elsewhere.
First, every school should have a clear and accessible anti-bullying and safeguarding policy. Students must know where and how to report intimidation, threats and physical abuse. Teachers must know how to respond, and school leaders must be accountable for ensuring that reports are properly handled.
Second, schools must move beyond reactive discipline. A suspension or other sanction may be necessary, but it should form part of a wider response that considers the safety and welfare of the affected learner. Follow-up and protection must not be overlooked.
Third, teachers and school administrators should receive regular training in safeguarding, conflict management, early identification of behavioural risks and appropriate referral procedures. Not every teacher is a trained counsellor, but every teacher should know how to recognise a safeguarding concern and report it responsibly.
Fourth, education authorities must strengthen monitoring. It is not enough to ask schools whether they have anti-bullying policies. Authorities should examine whether those policies are understood, implemented and effective. Serious incidents should be documented, investigated and used to improve institutional practice.
Finally, students themselves should be involved in building safer school communities. Peer support, student leadership, responsible reporting and a culture of respect can help prevent the normalisation of intimidation and violence.
These measures will not eliminate every risk. But they can help create institutions that recognise warning signs, respond appropriately and take the protection of learners seriously.
A child should not be afraid of going to school
The death of Javits Frimpong is a painful reminder that behind every school enrolment figure is a child whose life, aspirations and future deserve protection. His reported ambition to become a physician makes the loss even more difficult to contemplate. A young person who should have been thinking about lessons, friendships and a future career is now the subject of a tragic public conversation.
Edward Borketey Sackey’s death in Ghana should similarly remind us that school violence is not an abstract policy concern. It has consequences for real families, real communities and the future of young people.
We must be careful not to turn these tragedies into opportunities for speculation or premature accusations against schools and their administrators. But neither should we allow the passage of time to reduce them to temporary headlines.
The real test of educational leadership is not only how well a school performs when everything is going right. It is also how effectively it responds when a learner is vulnerable, threatened or in danger.
Perhaps it is time to ask a more fundamental question about the quality of our schools: are we producing learners who are academically prepared but emotionally unsafe, or are we building institutions that protect the whole child?
The school bell should signal the beginning of learning, not the beginning of fear. And every child, regardless of background, ability or circumstance, should be able to walk into a school with the confidence that the adults responsible for their welfare take their safety seriously.
A school that prepares a child for the future must first take reasonable steps to protect that child’s present.
By Jacob Anderson|Educational Law, Leadership and Governance
