The weekend death of a Pleasant Hill teenager highlights the continued need for a statewide focus on suicide prevention and bullying, state officials and local advocates say. Sheryl Moore, mother of Alexander Betts Jr., 16, believes bullying contributed to the death of her son, who attended Southeast Polk High School.

The teen’s death was a blow to Iowa’s anti-bullying advocates. The state debuted a new bullying reporting system last fall in an attempt to better track in-school incidents. A bullying and suicide hotline was launched in November to provide support for Iowans like Betts. read more…