After six Woodson High suicides, a search for solace and answers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/after-woodson-high-suicides-a-search-for-solace-and-answers/2014/04/11/a394dc64-b069-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html

The final evening of Jack Chen’s life was indistinguishable from many others. The sophomore returned home from school, ate dinner with his mother and retired to his room. His mother asked him to turn out his light at midnight.

Inside his bedroom, anguish gnawed at him, a darkness invisible to friends and family: He maintained a 4.3 grade-point average at one of the area’s top high schools, was a captain of the junior varsity football team and had never tried drugs or alcohol.

But that hidden pain drove Jack from his Fairfax Station home early the next morning — Wednesday, Feb. 26. The 15-year-old, who pestered his father to quit smoking and wear his safety belt, walked to nearby tracks and stepped between the rails as a commuter train approached.

His death is one of six apparent suicides at Fairfax’s W.T. Woodson High School during the past three years, including another student found dead the next day. The toll has left the school community reeling and prompted an urgent question: Why would so many teens from a single suburban school take their lives?

County officials say they do not believe the deaths are directly connected, and experts say that suicides among teens occurring in such a short span are extremely rare.

Students have cried openly in Woodson’s hallways while teachers have tried to show resilience. Frustrated parents have asked the Woodson leadership and school system administrators for answers while wondering whether the school’s high-pressure, high-achieving culture could be playing a role.

“A loss like this cuts a deep wound. It persists. It lingers. It’s very slow to heal,” said Steve Stuban, whose son attended Woodson and committed suicide in 2011. “I have no idea what causes this to occur with increased incidence. All I know is it seems it’s occurring more at Woodson than any other place in the county.”

In interviews, parents of five of the six Woodson teens who apparently took their own lives said their search for answers is never-ending. The Washington Post generally does not identify youths suspected of killing themselves, but the families agreed to speak to The Post about their children to illustrate how teen suicide has profoundly affected their lives.

Ivy Kilby’s 15-year-old son Cameron committed suicide on Aug. 4, 2012, a month before he was supposed to return to Woodson for his sophomore year. As a mother who has faced the grief that follows the death of a child, she said that parents should talk to their children about suicide and mental health before it’s too late.

“I never had a conversation with my kids until that happened to us,” Ivy Kilby said. “I hope every parent has a conversation with their children to ask them how they are doing mentally.”


A search for answers


Jack Chen spent his final hours writing a note. He loved his family and friends. He had dreams of being a computer science professor and having four children. But at 15, he “couldn’t keep doing this.”

“There is too much stress in my life from school and the environment it creates, expectations for sports, expectations from my friends and expectations from my family,” Jack wrote. He ended with a simple: “Goodbye.”

Jack’s death and the loss of five other students have reverberated within the community; more than 1,000 Woodson parents, teachers and administrators flooded into the school’s auditorium on a recent night trying to make sense of it all. The suicides have been especially baffling because many of the teens did not seem to exhibit the factors that would put them at risk. They had good grades, stable families and excelled at sports.

Fairfax County School Board member Megan McLaughlin, whose Braddock district includes Woodson and whose two sons attend the school, said talking about teen suicide is no longer taboo, and the school has moved quickly to talk to students about depression and self-harm.

“We absolutely have a responsibility to examine this as closely as possible to understand why this has continued to happen in one particular high school at this rate,” McLaughlin said. “It’s simply too high.”

Many wonder if there is a common thread. A number of parents and students said they worry about the fierce competition for limited spots in the state’s prestigious public university system.
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Ivy Kilby’s 15-year-old son Cameron committed suicide on Aug. 4, 2012, a month before he was supposed to return to Woodson for his sophomore year. As a mother who has faced the grief that follows the death of a child, she said that parents should talk to their children about suicide and mental health before it’s too late.

“I never had a conversation with my kids until that happened to us,” Ivy Kilby said. “I hope every parent has a conversation with their children to ask them how they are doing mentally.”
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Steve Stuban is seen at the grave of his son, Nick, a Woodson High School student who took his life in 2011.
Attachments:

The train tracks are seen last month near where Jack Chen ended his life and A memorial wreath and flowers are seen where Jack Chen ended his life.
Attachments:

To read the rest of the article go here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/after-woodson-high-suicides-a-search-for-solace-and-answers/2014/04/11/a394dc64-b069-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html

As a neighbor, I want to thank Steve Stuban, the Kilbys, Mrs. Glenn, Mrs. Griffith and Jack's parents for their courage to speak their family's stories. They confirmed what many of us have been thinking - these boys mostly kept their pain silent, were working so hard to be successful and their environment placed heavy burdens on them. A culture change needs to occur - mental health services need to be readily available and responsive, extra curricular and academic pressures need to be toned down starting at the top - FCPS and Virginia High School League need to set more limits here because the fierce competition to get accepted into coveted spots in our VA public colleges (namely, W&M, UVA and VA Tech) is forcing some of our children to over-achieve beyond reasonable expectations. Woodson graduates from the class of 2010 who were accepted at the University of Virginia took an average of 7.95 AP exams, William & Mary 7.77, and Virginia Tech 6.32. That means some students were taking 10 in order to compete for a coveted spot in their public University! For the most part, WTW grads are not attending Ivy league or very elite colleges. The VA colleges have quotas by region and Northern VA is heavily populated with high achieving students. Culture change needs to start at the State and National level.

Here's something novel.

Why don't parents just tell their kids that it doesn't really matter what school you get into so long as you just work hard in life? Unless they want to be a doctor or lawyer, there's nothing wrong with earning a computer science degree from whatever university so long as they apply themselves and create the realistic outcome they desire.

I went to the tracks yesterday. Poured some of my 40 out on the tracks for my fallen homie. Rest in peace homeslice.

Hey, ricky, what about the poor hurting train crew? It's a show for them, too, rick.

Not money, donk.

Borgata.

The train tracks are seen last month near where Jack Chen ended his life and A memorial wreath and flowers are seen where Jack Chen ended his life.
Idiot could have just hung himself and saved all us the annoying image of train tracks and some flowers, bet he was looking for attention from the people on the underground and thought that offing himself in an interesting way would get it. Other than that your post was a little too redundant for me.

As a teacher I'm aware of high school students that have taken their own lives at Edison, West Springfield, and South County.

I'm sure all of the schools in this area have suicide rates.
It is tragic that Woodson has experienced 6

Katie six Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a teacher I'm aware of high school students
> that have taken their own lives at Edison, West
> Springfield, and South County.
>
> I'm sure all of the schools in this area have
> suicide rates.
> It is tragic that Woodson has experienced 6

How many suicides are we talking here for say the past 10 years?

well it wasn't the fault of double (quadruple) dipping. i'm sure the kids had opportunity to start a real career at 16 and leave to start a family with a plot to call their own and a sexy bed to start a family with, a wagon of goods to get there with, and could rely on civility and law to help them when they made bad choices as they did when things were good

not
Attachments:

Lessen Lessons? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here's something novel.
>
> Why don't parents just tell their kids that it
> doesn't really matter what school you get into so
> long as you just work hard in life? Unless they
> want to be a doctor or lawyer, there's nothing
> wrong with earning a computer science degree from
> whatever university so long as they apply
> themselves and create the realistic outcome they
> desire.


+1000

For God's sake parents, chill out and let kids be kids. Let them choose classes and sports they may like, or not choose any at all. Not everyone gets to be first round draft pick or president of the united states.

The obvious solution is to give the Woodson principal a big raise.

School notes: Fairfax County plans teen mental health summit
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20140425/NEWS/140429512/1064/school-notes-fairfax-county-plans-teen-mental-health-summit&template=fairfaxTimes

Teen mental health summit planned for May 17
The Fairfax County school system will host what it calls a “community conversation” on teen mental health on Saturday, May 17, at Hayfield Secondary School.

The event, which will run from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., will focus on how teens can deal with stress and build resiliency, or the ability to bounce back from difficult situations. The community summit comes in the wake of four apparent suicides by Fairfax County high school students earlier this year.

The school district plans to bring together teens, parents, school and government officials and staff, mental health practitioners and community organizations. School officials want the event to serve not only as a venue to provide information and resources but also as a forum for discussion.

Session topics include handling large workloads, dealing with depression and more. The keynote speaker will be Brad Sachs, a psychologist and author who specializes in work with children, teens and families.

Interested parents, teens and community members can register for the event online at www.fcps.edu/dss/summit.

School Board recognizes teen drinking campaign
The Fairfax County School Board passed a resolution on April 17 supporting the Unified Prevention Coalition’s “Parents Who Host, Lose the Most” campaign.

The campaign, now in its eighth year, urges parents to comply with Virginia’s underage drinking laws with the tag line, “Don’t be a party to teenage drinking.” Throughout the month of May, the Unified Prevention Coalition aims to show parents the dangers of teenage drinking.

The 2012-2013 Fairfax County Youth Survey reported that 35 percent of high school seniors and 19 percent of tenth graders had consumed alcohol in the last 30 days.

The goal of the campaign is to stop parent-condoned parties for teens, complete with parent-provided alcohol. Instead, the Unified Prevention Coalition, an independent nonprofit that partners with school and government officials and community groups, encourages parents to host alcohol-free parties for their teens.

In supporting the campaign, the School Board notes in its resolution that parents’ prevention efforts, from talking with their children about responsible behavior to modeling that behavior themselves, are “critical, particularly during prom and graduation season.”

Mason Crest Elementary plants tree for Arbor Day
On Friday, students from Mason Crest Elementary School will plant a tree on school grounds to celebrate Arbor Day.

The planting will cap the students’ participation in an ecology education program. The program, called “Project Plant It!,” is sponsored by energy company Dominion and the Arbor Day Foundation.

Teachers receive a kit with lesson plans and instructional tools to help educate students about trees and their place in the ecosystem to support STEM learning. Students also will receive redbud tree seedlings to plant by their homes to further their hands-on learning experience.

— Kate Yanchulis

Mental health experts join Woodson High School faculty
By T. Rees Shapiro
THE WASHINGTON POST

A team of mental health experts will join the faculty at Woodson High School to support students and identify struggling teens, the Fairfax County school system announced Friday.

In a letter to parents, assistant superintendent Douglas Tyson, the administrator who oversees Woodson, wrote that the “school response team” will work on student outreach and suicide prevention programs.

Six Woodson students have died from suicide in the last three years, including two in February who died a day apart. The deaths left the Fairfax school reeling and parents demanded action from the administration. The plan announced by Tyson represents the newest efforts from the school system as leaders seek to address the persistent problem of teen stress and mental health awareness.

“The health and well being of our students is mission critical,” Tyson wrote. “We are committed to mobilizing any necessary resources to support the great students at Woodson High School.”

The new team includes Dan Meier, a retired administrator who previously served as principal of Robinson secondary school. Meier, who left Fairfax last year, had also served as a counselor and guidance director. Also joining Woodson are John Todd, a school psychologist with 20 years of experience, Eileen Goldschmidt, a former school psychologist of the year winner, and Peggy Perry, a veteran school counselor who once served as director of student services.

Tyson wrote that the new team will work with teens who may be struggling in the classroom or dealing with social and emotional problems to “identify and refer students for assistance who may be at high risk for self-harm.”

The team will help promote a positive and caring environment for the students, Tyson wrote.

“The new school support team will work to ensure that trained professional staff are available at Woodson to expeditiously handle the evaluation of at-risk students and help families connect to appropriate support services,” Tyson wrote. “We understand that there are no quick fixes to the issues that we are facing, but we are in this together with you for the long term and will continue to strengthen the response and outreach efforts.”

Woodson parents have also been encouraged to attend a program on April 29 at Frost Middle School on “living with teens.” The speaker will be Lizbeth Moses, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who specializes in treating anxiety, depression and grief.

In May, the school system will host a community-wide teen stress summit at Hayfield Secondary School. The event will allow parents to learn from mental health experts on how to help teens build resilience.

Just a note that there isn't any "solace" going to come of out all this school-based hoopla. These kids are all dead now and that fact will remain a constant in the minds and lives of their parents, families, and friends for as long as each of those lives. Basically, these folks should stop beating themselves up over what has happened if they have been, allow their thoughts and emotions free and blameless rein to wander where they will and need to as part of a natural process of trying to sort through the situation, all the while expecting that they will need to allow themselves about five years to get to a place where the loss has become borderline bearable and even starts to fade from consciousness for a while every now and then. The good news is that there is indeed life for the survivors on the other side of these tragedies, but it takes a good amount of time time and a lot of simple tolerance and acceptance of one's self in order to get there. Best wishes to all in making the journey.

Connecting the dots
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20140501/OPINION/140509936/1065/connecting-the-dots&template=fairfaxTimes

Fairfax County’s public school system certainly didn’t set out to become ground zero for the nation’s struggle with mental illness and teen suicide, but fate had other plans.

Those tragic plans first appeared in early February when two Langley High School students committed suicide within 24 hours of each other. Three weeks later, two more students from Woodson High School took their own lives.

In the past three years, 15 Fairfax County teens have committed suicide, including six who attended Woodson. Not surprisingly, those deaths left an indelible mark on students and parents across the county and led to a demand for action from school administrators.

For the most part, it appears those demands are being heard.

Read more here:
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20140501/OPINION/140509936/1065/connecting-the-dots&template=fairfaxTimes

Mental health team joins Woodson to strengthen suicide prevention efforts
Experts provide extra support after two student suicides this year
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20140501/NEWS/140509929/1117/mental-health-team-joins-woodson-to-strengthen-suicide-prevention&template=fairfaxTimes

A mental health response team is joining the faculty of Woodson High School to provide an extra layer of support for students, the school announced last Friday.

Two students from the school died by suicide within two days in late February, bringing to six the number student suicides at Woodson since 2011. The response team represents the latest piece of an ongoing push to strengthen mental health resources at Woodson and across the Fairfax County school system.

Assistant superintendent Douglas Tyson, who oversees Woodson, sent a letter to the school community on April 26 introducing the four-person team. The team will work at Woodson full-time through the end of the school year, fortifying to the school’s suicide prevention and outreach efforts.

“Since the tragic incidents occurred, we as a system have been in a continual planning process for how we can best support the faculty and students at the school,” Tyson said in an interview. “We are working to provide all the resources they need.”

The team members include Dan Meier, a former guidance counselor who retired as principal of Robinson Secondary School last year, and John Todd, a school psychologist and former coordinator of psychological services for FCPS. School counselor Peggy Perry and school psychologist Eileen Goldschmidt round out the group.

Three of the team members, Todd, Perry and Goldschmidt, are already in place, and Meier will join them by the end of next week, Tyson said.

The response team will work in tandem with the counselors and psychologists already at the school to identify teens who are struggling and provide extra support “on the ground” for students, Tyson said.

“Our goal was not to do something to the school but to work alongside the school,” Tyson said. “We’re augmenting what is already in place to meet the mental, social and emotional needs of the students.”

Meier, Todd, Perry and Goldschmidt are also tasked with the mission of building more connections between students, faculty, administrators and mental health professionals, weaving a tighter web to catch teens who may be at risk for self-harm.

And while this team is only scheduled to remain at Woodson through the end of the year, the larger work of improving the health resources at Woodson and throughout the county, will continue, Tyson said.

“This is not some quick Band-Aid we’re coming in to apply,” Tyson said. “We are present for the long-term, and we want to find solutions and continue to get stronger.”

Another building block toward this goal will be the teen mental health summit the school district is hosting on May 17. Students and parents are encouraged to attend the event at Hayfield Secondary School, which will run from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

The summit centers on how teens can deal with stress and build resiliency, or the ability to bounce back from difficult situations, and will serve not only as a venue to provide information and resources but also as a forum for discussion.

“That is a day that is going to be a big milestone as we move forward to address the issues at Woodson and really throughout the division,” Tyson said.

tl;dr

Four new highly-paid administrators without any actual responsibilities or measurable outcomes for their "work". So typical of Fairfax County, where taxpayers are shorn like sheep.

Why? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> After six Woodson High suicides, a search for
> solace and answers
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/after-wo
> odson-high-suicides-a-search-for-solace-and-answer
> s/2014/04/11/a394dc64-b069-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_
> story.htmlw

>
> The final evening of Jack Chen’s life was
> indistinguishable from many others. The sophomore
> returned home from school, ate dinner with his
> mother and retired to his room. His mother asked
> him to turn out his light at midnight.
>
> Inside his bedroom, anguish gnawed at him, a
> darkness invisible to friends and family: He
> maintained a 4.3 grade-point average at one of the
> area’s top high schools, was a captain of the
> junior varsity football team and had never tried
> drugs or alcohol.
>
> But that hidden pain drove Jack from his Fairfax
> Station home early the next morning — Wednesday,
> Feb. 26. The 15-year-old, who pestered his father
> to quit smoking and wear his safety belt, walked
> to nearby tracks and stepped between the rails as
> a commuter train approached.
>
> His death is one of six apparent suicides at
> Fairfax’s W.T. Woodson High School during the
> past three years, including another student found
> dead the next day. The toll has left the school
> community reeling and prompted an urgent question:
> Why would so many teens from a single suburban
> school take their lives?
>
> County officials say they do not believe the
> deaths are directly connected, and experts say
> that suicides among teens occurring in such a
> short span are extremely rare.
>
> Students have cried openly in Woodson’s hallways
> while teachers have tried to show resilience.
> Frustrated parents have asked the Woodson
> leadership and school system administrators for
> answers while wondering whether the school’s
> high-pressure, high-achieving culture could be
> playing a role.
>
> “A loss like this cuts a deep wound. It
> persists. It lingers. It’s very slow to heal,”
> said Steve Stuban, whose son attended Woodson and
> committed suicide in 2011. “I have no idea what
> causes this to occur with increased incidence. All
> I know is it seems it’s occurring more at
> Woodson than any other place in the county.”
>
> In interviews, parents of five of the six Woodson
> teens who apparently took their own lives said
> their search for answers is never-ending. The
> Washington Post generally does not identify youths
> suspected of killing themselves, but the families
> agreed to speak to The Post about their children
> to illustrate how teen suicide has profoundly
> affected their lives.
>
> Ivy Kilby’s 15-year-old son Cameron committed
> suicide on Aug. 4, 2012, a month before he was
> supposed to return to Woodson for his sophomore
> year. As a mother who has faced the grief that
> follows the death of a child, she said that
> parents should talk to their children about
> suicide and mental health before it’s too late.
>
> “I never had a conversation with my kids until
> that happened to us,” Ivy Kilby said. “I hope
> every parent has a conversation with their
> children to ask them how they are doing
> mentally.”
>
>
> A search for answers
>
>
> Jack Chen spent his final hours writing a note. He
> loved his family and friends. He had dreams of
> being a computer science professor and having four
> children. But at 15, he “couldn’t keep doing
> this.”
>
> “There is too much stress in my life from school
> and the environment it creates, expectations for
> sports, expectations from my friends and
> expectations from my family,” Jack wrote. He
> ended with a simple: “Goodbye.”
>
> Jack’s death and the loss of five other students
> have reverberated within the community; more than
> 1,000 Woodson parents, teachers and administrators
> flooded into the school’s auditorium on a recent
> night trying to make sense of it all. The suicides
> have been especially baffling because many of the
> teens did not seem to exhibit the factors that
> would put them at risk. They had good grades,
> stable families and excelled at sports.
>
> Fairfax County School Board member Megan
> McLaughlin, whose Braddock district includes
> Woodson and whose two sons attend the school, said
> talking about teen suicide is no longer taboo, and
> the school has moved quickly to talk to students
> about depression and self-harm.
>
> “We absolutely have a responsibility to examine
> this as closely as possible to understand why this
> has continued to happen in one particular high
> school at this rate,” McLaughlin said. “It’s
> simply too high.”
>
> Many wonder if there is a common thread. A number
> of parents and students said they worry about the
> fierce competition for limited spots in the
> state’s prestigious public university system.