Fellow students of the 14-year-old New Jersey girl who was bullied into taking her own life earlier this month slammed school officials for not doing more to prevent the tragedy during a packed and sometimes heated school board meeting Thursday night. 

The students were joined by hundreds of parents and community members who attended Central Regional School District’s first board meeting since Adriana Kuch took her own life on Feb. 3. 

“[Adriana] already reported numerous reports about how she was being bullied, and you guys just sat there and did nothing,” one of her friends, Hailie Engesser, told the board in the auditorium of the Ocean County, NJ, high school. 

“It’s actually really, really hard to be going to school because of all the bullying and everything that’s been going on. But it’s the fact that you didn’t notify the police about that or about Adriana. She was on the floor blacked out … You guys could have prevented that,” said Engesser, a ninth-grader. 

Engesser and other students shared their own heart-wrenching accounts of times they say they were bullied as students in the district.

Roman Velez, a 16-year-old sophomore, said he’s been desensitized to all the racist comments thrown his way at school.

“I have been called multiple racist things, multiple slurs, to the point where if I hear [them], I don’t bat an eye. I’m used to it,” he said.

Despite reporting past incidents to officials, Velez said they were “swept under the rug.”

“When people ask me what my experience at Central Regional is, it’s not, ‘I went to CR.’ It’s ‘I survived CR,’ because coming to the school, it’s like being in a prison,” Velez added. 

Junior Milo Luga said she’s been bullied “every day” since seventh grade because she is gay, and revealed that bullies had posted photos of her on social media.

“I’ve been to mental hospitals, and I’ve been suicidal, and I’ve self-harmed in the past because of what happened to me in the school,” she said. 

Luga said her mom has called the school “on so many occasions” and spoken to “every single person you can think of,” including the superintendent, but “was never given any genuine help.”

“I’ve just been told to ignore it, to be the bigger person, walk away,” she said, adding that her bullies have avoided any serious punishment.

As soon as the meeting began, the rowdy crowd began shouting at the board as the members moved through regular business. 

“We don’t care about your agenda, we want to get to what we’re all here for!” one woman screamed.

Board President Denise Wilson threatened to shut down the meeting as she conducted a vote to appoint new superintendent Douglas Corbett to replace former superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides, who resigned on Saturday.

“No no no!” one person shouted.

“What’s his background?” another yelled.

“If you can’t take the heat, you shouldn’t be on the board!” cried one spectator as Wilson begged the audience to let them get through the vote.

Adriana died just two days after she was brutally beaten by four students in a school hallway. The bullying continued for days after the attack as video of it spread on social media, the teen’s family said.

The sickening video shows Adriana’s assailants throwing a drink at her, kicking and punching her, and dragging her down the hallway. They pushed her into lockers, pulled her hair, and hit her with a 20-ounce water bottle as onlookers laughed. The cops were not called, and her attackers initially only received a suspension.

Four New Jersey teenage girls were charged with the beating. One was charged with aggravated assault, another with harassment, and two others with conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said. Their names have not been released due to their age.

Crystal Mayo, of nearby Toms River, addressed the board on behalf of her niece, who she said left Central Regional because she was bullied so badly.

“It shouldn’t take a child taking her own life for us to change. It should never get to that point,” she said. “A child should never have those thoughts. A child should be able to enter a school and feel safe. We should be teaching our children tolerance and love and respect. Everybody’s different.”

“You talked about the policy being a state policy and you have no regards to change it. Well, why aren’t you speaking up if you think it’s wrong? Why are you being silent?”

“Why am I hearing that the policy hasn’t changed in 30 years? Students that were bullied 30 years ago, and it’s still the same today,” she continued, to loud applause from the audience.

Former superintendent Parlapanides resigned over the weekend after he tried to shift blame for Adriana’s suicide to her family, claiming her father’s “affair” and her own drug use caused turmoil in her life.

The former district head revealed personal family information, telling the Daily Mail that Adriana’s father, Michael, was having an affair when Adriana was in sixth grade, and as a result, his daughter’s “grades and choices declined in seventh and eighth grade.”

Michael Kuch told The Post Saturday he wanted “the entire administration gone.” 

Read more of The Post’s coverage of Adriana Kuch

He said Adriana never received drug treatment and that she had merely been experimenting with THC pens like other teenagers.

At a press conference with reporters before the meeting, Corbett responded vaguely to questions on how he plans to ensure that a tragedy like this doesn’t happen again.

“I think the biggest problems we’ve had is communication, and one of the things that I’m definitely going to do better is to communicate the good things that we’re doing, the services that we provide, the responses that we already have in place, so parents mostly, most importantly the students, understand that we’re here to help always.”

Corbett said the district’s current harassment, intimidation, and bullying policy complies with all state laws and Department of Education requirements.

When asked how he will assure parents that if their students are bullied, they will not be bullied again, Corbett said “there’s a range of consequences” in those kinds of situations.

“What we can speak to, and I think what can be aggravating at times, is of course consequences follow, but I can’t tell the victim’s parents what those consequences are.”

He said the school does have a resource officer and two safety officers on campus if violence breaks out at the school.

Corbett said he disagreed that there was an ongoing culture of violence at the school, as some parents and former students have claimed.

“That has not been my experience at all. Based on our data alone, it doesn’t indicate that we’re a culture of violence. We don’t condone that. We actually do everything in our power to dissuade that. I don’t want to argue with parents that I’ve never had a productive and positive conversation with, but no, I’m sorry, I don’t agree that we have a culture of violence.”

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.