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Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
Parents seek action at Fairfax County’s Woodson High after suicides
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Date: April 18, 2014 08:59PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/parents-seek-action-at-fairfax-countys-woodson-high-after-suicides/2014/04/18/e7c8c4ac-c58d-11e3-bf7a-be01a9b69cf1_story.html
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Parents seek action at Fairfax County’s Woodson High after suicides
In the aftermath of a series of student suicides at W.T. Woodson High School, parents are urging Fairfax County schools administrators to help the teens cope with stress at the high-performing school.
Six teens at the school have died by suicide during the past three years, including two students who died within a day of each other in February. The deaths have shocked the school community and have left parents, teachers and students searching for answers.
“It has been a school that has gone through so much,” said Fairfax County School Board member Megan McLaughlin (Braddock), whose son is a Woodson senior.
Fairfax school leaders have sought to allay concern, holding gatherings for parents about mental health resources and working to ensure that students know they have people they can talk to if they feel overstressed or desperate. On May 17, the school district plans to have a countywide summit on teen stress and resiliency at Hayfield Secondary School.
McLaughlin said the event will include separate sessions on homework load, stressors related to advanced courses, the demands of high school sports and suicide prevention. While most Fairfax high schools have one school psychologist and one social worker on the staff, McLaughlin said the school will have additional mental health staffers on campus for the rest of the academic year. She did not specify how many.
“We’ve talked about it enough,” McLaughlin said. “Now, what concrete steps can we see the community as a whole start to take, because it involves not just the schools but also our families? Hopefully, what you’ll see is a demonstration that we really do value student health and well-being.”
Woodson parent Bonnie Clements said that the school, which annually earns high rankings for achievement, puts too much emphasis on Advanced Placement courses.
“They are under too much pressure,” said Clements, whose son is a senior. “It’s not all about how many AP classes you took.”
In a letter to parents last week, Woodson principal Jeff Yost wrote that counselors, psychologists and social workers have been meeting with English classes to address concerns with students directly and to offer services. School counselors also will meet with seniors before graduation to seek feedback on bettering the lives of students at Woodson.
“We are deeply committed to supporting our students and families who may continue to have concerns following the losses our community has experienced,” Yost wrote. He declined to comment further when contacted this week.
In the meantime, some parents are looking to bridge the gap of services for students. Concerned about the effects of the recent suicides, Bob Phillips and Carol Davis, parents of two Woodson students, formed a group called Community of Solutions that aims to help create a safety net for teens who are struggling with thoughts of suicide.
Phillips said he worked with Nick Stuban, one of the Woodson teens who committed suicide in 2011, in Boy Scouts.
“The school was doing a lot of the work to prevent further loss of life,” Phillips said. “The parents and the public health department didn’t feel pulled in quite as well.”
The group holds regular meetings to hear from parents and students. One meeting in March was attended by nearly 60 people.
The community group also has worked with the public health department to train students in mental health first aid. About 40 students across the county have learned how to spot signs of distress in classmates. The group also is creating a package of resources for teens who want help, allowing them to more easily access counseling services and get appropriate treatment.
The community group also is urging school counselors and social workers to get more involved with students before problems arise.
“Students often don’t know those folks until they need them,” Davis said.
Woodson PTSO President Penny Carey-Stratton said the organization is hoping to collaborate more closely with Community of Solutions. Carey-Stratton noted that parents have been deeply affected by the stories of five Woodson families who spoke to The Washington Post about how teen suicide has changed their lives.
“They feel for the parents of these kids,” Carey-Stratton said. “They can’t imagine being that parent .?.?. and I hope everyone knows we still care about them.”
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/letter-from-woodson-high-school-to-parents/2014/04/18/2a9f1fb8-c720-11e3-bf7a-be01a9b69cf1_story.html
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Letter from Woodson High School to parents following series of suicides
The following e-mail message was sent from the principal of Fairfax County’s W.T. Woodson High School to parents on April 11, discussing the school’s actions following a series of suicides at the school. The message came ahead of the school’s spring break and a day before The Washington Post published a story about the suicides of six Woodson students in the past three years and the effects the suicides have had on their families and the school community.
Dear Woodson Families,
We are deeply committed to supporting our students and families who may continue to have concerns following the losses our community has experienced. As you know, we hosted a community event on March 5th where families were encouraged to share concerns and provide us feedback. We immediately reviewed the suggestions that were turned in and made contact the following day with students and parents who requested clinical support. In addition, we looked at every suggestion for ideas that could be implemented in the short term while considering other ideas, including hosting a Teen Summit, that could set in motion long term FCPS changes. I also want to let you know about actions we have been taking at Woodson to support our students.
First, school counselors, psychologists, and social workers have been visiting English classes this week and will again following spring break to share information with students and address some of the issues, concerns and questions that were shared with us from the March 5 meeting. This is providing an opportunity for the mental health team to reintroduce themselves to students, to let students know where they are located in the building, and to provide examples of when students might want to meet with one of them.
The following points are being communicated to the students during these class visits:
-Any student can see a counselor, psychologist, or social worker during the school day.
- If there is a safety concern, the staff will work with the student to contact parents or guardians. Nothing will be done without a student’s awareness, but it’s important to note that this information cannot be kept confidential.
- What is shared with a school counselor will not be included in letters of recommendation to colleges unless a student requests that the information be shared/included.
- If a student shares information about his or her own drug or alcohol use or that of a friend, we will work with the student or his or her friend to get them help.
- If a student is having a problem, we encourage the student to come talk to us.
- Our counselors, psychologists, and social workers are here to support and help our students.
In addition to sharing information with students, the staff is also asking students to provide feedback on the following two questions to help identify and address any barriers — real or perceived — to students receiving support at the school:
1. Are there any obstacles that prevent you or other students from talking to the school counselor, psychologist, or social worker if you need help? If so, what are they?
2. What can school staff do to help students feel more comfortable approaching the school counselor, psychologist, or social worker?
Second, our school counselors will be meeting individually with all seniors in the coming months. At that time, the counselors will ask about student plans after high school and, as leaders in the school, ask them to provide feedback about their experience at Woodson and seek their ideas about what teachers and other adults in their lives could do to help support students during the high school years.
Third, I will continue to hold monthly parent coffees and will be happy to invite a member of the clinical team to answer parent questions.
Finally, the responses to the blue cards collected at the March 5 meeting, and subsequent conversations I have had with parents and various community partners, including Community of Solutions, have been provided to Dr. Garza and the individuals who are planning the FCPS Teen Resiliency Summit, which is planned for May 17, 2014 at Hayfield Secondary School. Many of the topics and sessions have been developed based on Woodson parent and student feedback and we hope you will be able to attend. I will provide additional information about the Summit as the details are finalized.
As you know, schools will be closed from April 14 through 18 for spring break. If you have any concerns about your child while schools are closed, there are community resources that are available to support you. Crisis Link (703-527-4077) is staffed with professionals who are able to consult with families about any mental health concerns. Additional resources are available at: http://www.fcps.edu/dss/ips/emergency-info/index.shtml. During normal school hours, school counselors, school psychologists, and school social workers continue to be available to support students and families.
I hope that you and your family have a restful and wonderful spring break.
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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
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After six Woodson High suicides, a search for solace and answers
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.”
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.
Though teen suicide has dropped since its peak in the 1980s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fairfax saw 10 youths die by their own hands in 2013, a five-year high. At Woodson, it is an unavoidable subject.
Karen Garza, Fairfax County’s public schools superintendent, said that she encourages students, teachers and parents to talk to one another if they need help. On May 17, the school system plans to host a countywide event that will focus on mental health. “We are all profoundly saddened by the untimely deaths of our students, and our thoughts remain with the families and friends impacted by these losses,” Garza said.
Two suicides at Woodson in 48 hours marked the second time this year that has happened at a Fairfax County school. County officials said two Langley High School students committed suicide in January within a day of each other, though investigators also said those deaths appear unrelated. The Langley suicides deeply affected the close community in McLean, and the recent losses at Woodson stoked old memories among the student body.
In January 2011, 15-year-old Nick Stuban, a sophomore and rising star on the Woodson Cavaliers football team, committed suicide after he became mired in school discipline hearings for buying synthetic marijuana.
“There are many things that play into an individual’s decision to take their own life, and trying to grasp at understanding that is very difficult,” said his father, Steve Stuban. “You’re left with the why, the why did this occur, and a sense of guilt of ‘what could I have done?’?”
Cameron Kilby, a Boy Scout, acolyte at his church and sophomore cross-country runner at Woodson, took his life in the late summer of 2012.
A few months later, senior football player Bryan Glenn disappeared one day in October. He planned to attend the upcoming homecoming dance and had ambitions of serving in the military as a helicopter pilot. He was found dead a week later in a Fairfax park a mile and half from Woodson.
Then in April, 17-year-old junior Ethan Griffith jumped off a parking garage at the Annandale campus of Northern Virginia Community College.
Each of those tragedies was reawakened when the public address system at Woodson crackled to life during sixth period on the day Jack Chen died. Senior Killian Rodgers said he and his classmates froze. They sensed the announcement that was coming, after so many other deaths.
“The color just drained out of their faces,” Rodgers said.
There was little respite. Students were notified two days later of the junior who took his life after Jack. Many were attending a region semifinal basketball game in Woodson’s gym. The news rippled through the crowd as students checked their phones.
“Slowly, people just kept breaking down,” said Bailey Bishop, a senior.
Sydni Weissgold, 16, a sophomore, said students and teachers have been reaching out to one another — little acts of reassurance to get through this difficult time and to weave a safety net for any other vulnerable students.
Weissgold said friends are sending texts saying “I love you.” She was approached recently by a boy from her history class she rarely spoke with. He gave her a thumbs up and asked whether she was all right.
“It’s hard to make sense of it all,” Weissgold said. “You try to stay strong and stay together.”
A knock at the door
Jim Chen is at a loss. When he runs through the events of the days and weeks leading to his son’s death, he finds nothing amiss. No clue to what he overlooked.
There were no signs of depression. No outbursts. No withdrawal. Jack had maintained all A’s, except for a single B-plus in a math class. He rowed on the crew team and was a hurdler on the track team. The father and son had made plans to practice driving.
Then, on that chilly February morning, there was a knock at the door. Jack was dead, a police officer told his parents. “I said, ‘This is impossible,’?” Chen recalled. “?‘He was a happy boy.’?”
Jim Chen speculates that Jack’s skin medication, which can cause depression, might have played a role. “There was something going on in his mind, but he didn’t give me any chance to do anything,” Chen said. “My heart is aching.”
That same anguish has gripped five other Woodson families.
Rosella Glenn, Bryan Glenn’s mother, said Woodson doesn’t have the tools to help students with mental health issues. “How many more need to die before somebody wakes up and realizes there is a situation that warrants bringing in more resources to fight this problem?” Glenn said. “I’m tired of seeing flowers and signs around Woodson.”The Glenns said that in the weeks before their son died, he was “at the high point” of his life. There was no explanation for his death, the Glenns said, and they find his suicide hard to accept.
“People need to ask more questions about why this is happening,” Rosella Glenn said. “It could be their kids next.”
Gayle Griffith lost her husband, Matthew, in 2011, when he died of a heart attack. Less than two years later, her son Ethan committed suicide.
The warning signs didn’t appear obvious at first, Griffith said. A straight-A student and Woodson track athlete, Ethan’s slipping grades appeared to be fallout from his father’s death. He was known to help his friends work through math homework assignments in the cafeteria during lunch, and he wore outlandish costumes during spirit days at the school.
“He tried to be friends with everyone,” Griffith said.
Ethan attended a suicide prevention seminar at Woodson last April, Griffith said, where he heard a nationally renowned speaker, Jordan Burnham, speak to teens about how he had leaped off a building and survived. Burnham uses his own cautionary tale to promote mental health awareness.
Days later, Ethan climbed to the top of a parking garage in Annandale and jumped to his death.
Griffith had been trying to get her son professional help. The Monday before he died, she arranged for a Woodson psychologist to evaluate him, but the meeting was canceled at the last minute for an emergency, Griffith said. That meeting was rescheduled for Wednesday; Ethan killed himself that Tuesday night.
In January, nine months later, Griffith was rummaging through her son’s closet and opened up his backpack. Inside, she found a paper Ethan had written for an Advanced Placement class a few months before he died. He had written that he felt depressed and had suicidal thoughts.
“The teacher didn’t follow their protocol,” Griffith said. “If a kid says he’s thought about it or writes about it in a paper, they are supposed to call their team of counselors. But that never happened.”
Griffith said she hopes that her son’s writings can serve as a tool to help teachers identify warning signs in students’ work.
The county’s assistant superintendent for special services, Kim Dockery, who met with Griffith, declined to comment on Ethan’s case but said the administration is planning to have all county teachers review their training for detecting the signs of suicide.
Other families believe the school is doing the best it can. Cameron Kilby’s parents credit Woodson Principal Jeff Yost and other school officials for their efforts to promote suicide awareness.
“It’s an extremely hard issue,” Jim Kilby said. “For folks who aren’t affected by it, the tendency is to look for a discrete cause. Having wrestled with this for a while, I don’t think it’s quite so simple.”
The Kilbys said that before their son died, teen suicide had never crossed their minds. Now teen mental health is a subject that the Kilbys think about often.
“For folks that aren’t connected to suicide, it is a harsh, jolting fact when this happens. It is for us, too, but it’s never too far away from our thoughts,” Jim Kilby said. “We never stop thinking about it.”
At Woodson, the latest deaths have revamped efforts in the school community to promote well-being. A student group recently started stress-reducing yoga sessions after class, and other teens have been trained as mental health first responders. In recent years, the administration has moved to restore the number of school psychologists and social workers lost during recession-era budget cuts.
Fairfax County high schools have begun posting suicide and depression hotline information on the front pages of their Web sites. School officials said the recent efforts already have had a positive effect: a number of students expressing self-harming feelings have reached out to the school system for help .
Yost said that Woodson’s challenges addressing mental health concerns among the student body are not unique.
“Every school has this issue,” Yost said. “Every school has to go about fixing it.”
Christine Moutier, the chief medical officer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said the number of suicides at Woodson is high, even if there appears to be nothing linking them. She said such suicide clusters could have very real effects on other students.
“The thing we are always concerned about is the phenomenon of suicide contagion,” Moutier said. “Youths are more susceptible to contagion, and research has found that 2 to 5 percent of teen suicides had a possible role of contagion. It is a vast minority, but it doesn’t mean the phenomenon doesn’t exist.”
Experts said the problem is particularly acute in the age of social media. Woodson teachers have observed students retweeting and favoriting the final messages from Jack Chen and the junior who died after him, rapidly exposing hundreds of students to the tragedies in an unfiltered way.
In a 2011 survey of Fairfax County youths, the most recent data available, approximately 16 percent of Fairfax eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders — a total of 4,840 students — considered suicide. A much smaller percentage of the student population — but more than 1,150 teens — admitted attempting suicide that same year, according to the survey.
But the numbers can’t capture the impact of each death. More than 500 people turned out for Jack Chen’s funeral. Friends produced a video showing old family photos of Chen frolicking with his sister, holding a football and playing piano.
“He was a great guy with all the smarts and talent to have a bright future,” Jim Chen said. “It’s unbelievable.”
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Parents seek action at Fairfax County’s Woodson High after suicides
In the aftermath of a series of student suicides at W.T. Woodson High School, parents are urging Fairfax County schools administrators to help the teens cope with stress at the high-performing school.
Six teens at the school have died by suicide during the past three years, including two students who died within a day of each other in February. The deaths have shocked the school community and have left parents, teachers and students searching for answers.
“It has been a school that has gone through so much,” said Fairfax County School Board member Megan McLaughlin (Braddock), whose son is a Woodson senior.
Fairfax school leaders have sought to allay concern, holding gatherings for parents about mental health resources and working to ensure that students know they have people they can talk to if they feel overstressed or desperate. On May 17, the school district plans to have a countywide summit on teen stress and resiliency at Hayfield Secondary School.
McLaughlin said the event will include separate sessions on homework load, stressors related to advanced courses, the demands of high school sports and suicide prevention. While most Fairfax high schools have one school psychologist and one social worker on the staff, McLaughlin said the school will have additional mental health staffers on campus for the rest of the academic year. She did not specify how many.
“We’ve talked about it enough,” McLaughlin said. “Now, what concrete steps can we see the community as a whole start to take, because it involves not just the schools but also our families? Hopefully, what you’ll see is a demonstration that we really do value student health and well-being.”
Woodson parent Bonnie Clements said that the school, which annually earns high rankings for achievement, puts too much emphasis on Advanced Placement courses.
“They are under too much pressure,” said Clements, whose son is a senior. “It’s not all about how many AP classes you took.”
In a letter to parents last week, Woodson principal Jeff Yost wrote that counselors, psychologists and social workers have been meeting with English classes to address concerns with students directly and to offer services. School counselors also will meet with seniors before graduation to seek feedback on bettering the lives of students at Woodson.
“We are deeply committed to supporting our students and families who may continue to have concerns following the losses our community has experienced,” Yost wrote. He declined to comment further when contacted this week.
In the meantime, some parents are looking to bridge the gap of services for students. Concerned about the effects of the recent suicides, Bob Phillips and Carol Davis, parents of two Woodson students, formed a group called Community of Solutions that aims to help create a safety net for teens who are struggling with thoughts of suicide.
Phillips said he worked with Nick Stuban, one of the Woodson teens who committed suicide in 2011, in Boy Scouts.
“The school was doing a lot of the work to prevent further loss of life,” Phillips said. “The parents and the public health department didn’t feel pulled in quite as well.”
The group holds regular meetings to hear from parents and students. One meeting in March was attended by nearly 60 people.
The community group also has worked with the public health department to train students in mental health first aid. About 40 students across the county have learned how to spot signs of distress in classmates. The group also is creating a package of resources for teens who want help, allowing them to more easily access counseling services and get appropriate treatment.
The community group also is urging school counselors and social workers to get more involved with students before problems arise.
“Students often don’t know those folks until they need them,” Davis said.
Woodson PTSO President Penny Carey-Stratton said the organization is hoping to collaborate more closely with Community of Solutions. Carey-Stratton noted that parents have been deeply affected by the stories of five Woodson families who spoke to The Washington Post about how teen suicide has changed their lives.
“They feel for the parents of these kids,” Carey-Stratton said. “They can’t imagine being that parent .?.?. and I hope everyone knows we still care about them.”
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/letter-from-woodson-high-school-to-parents/2014/04/18/2a9f1fb8-c720-11e3-bf7a-be01a9b69cf1_story.html
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Letter from Woodson High School to parents following series of suicides
The following e-mail message was sent from the principal of Fairfax County’s W.T. Woodson High School to parents on April 11, discussing the school’s actions following a series of suicides at the school. The message came ahead of the school’s spring break and a day before The Washington Post published a story about the suicides of six Woodson students in the past three years and the effects the suicides have had on their families and the school community.
Dear Woodson Families,
We are deeply committed to supporting our students and families who may continue to have concerns following the losses our community has experienced. As you know, we hosted a community event on March 5th where families were encouraged to share concerns and provide us feedback. We immediately reviewed the suggestions that were turned in and made contact the following day with students and parents who requested clinical support. In addition, we looked at every suggestion for ideas that could be implemented in the short term while considering other ideas, including hosting a Teen Summit, that could set in motion long term FCPS changes. I also want to let you know about actions we have been taking at Woodson to support our students.
First, school counselors, psychologists, and social workers have been visiting English classes this week and will again following spring break to share information with students and address some of the issues, concerns and questions that were shared with us from the March 5 meeting. This is providing an opportunity for the mental health team to reintroduce themselves to students, to let students know where they are located in the building, and to provide examples of when students might want to meet with one of them.
The following points are being communicated to the students during these class visits:
-Any student can see a counselor, psychologist, or social worker during the school day.
- If there is a safety concern, the staff will work with the student to contact parents or guardians. Nothing will be done without a student’s awareness, but it’s important to note that this information cannot be kept confidential.
- What is shared with a school counselor will not be included in letters of recommendation to colleges unless a student requests that the information be shared/included.
- If a student shares information about his or her own drug or alcohol use or that of a friend, we will work with the student or his or her friend to get them help.
- If a student is having a problem, we encourage the student to come talk to us.
- Our counselors, psychologists, and social workers are here to support and help our students.
In addition to sharing information with students, the staff is also asking students to provide feedback on the following two questions to help identify and address any barriers — real or perceived — to students receiving support at the school:
1. Are there any obstacles that prevent you or other students from talking to the school counselor, psychologist, or social worker if you need help? If so, what are they?
2. What can school staff do to help students feel more comfortable approaching the school counselor, psychologist, or social worker?
Second, our school counselors will be meeting individually with all seniors in the coming months. At that time, the counselors will ask about student plans after high school and, as leaders in the school, ask them to provide feedback about their experience at Woodson and seek their ideas about what teachers and other adults in their lives could do to help support students during the high school years.
Third, I will continue to hold monthly parent coffees and will be happy to invite a member of the clinical team to answer parent questions.
Finally, the responses to the blue cards collected at the March 5 meeting, and subsequent conversations I have had with parents and various community partners, including Community of Solutions, have been provided to Dr. Garza and the individuals who are planning the FCPS Teen Resiliency Summit, which is planned for May 17, 2014 at Hayfield Secondary School. Many of the topics and sessions have been developed based on Woodson parent and student feedback and we hope you will be able to attend. I will provide additional information about the Summit as the details are finalized.
As you know, schools will be closed from April 14 through 18 for spring break. If you have any concerns about your child while schools are closed, there are community resources that are available to support you. Crisis Link (703-527-4077) is staffed with professionals who are able to consult with families about any mental health concerns. Additional resources are available at: http://www.fcps.edu/dss/ips/emergency-info/index.shtml. During normal school hours, school counselors, school psychologists, and school social workers continue to be available to support students and families.
I hope that you and your family have a restful and wonderful spring break.
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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
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After six Woodson High suicides, a search for solace and answers
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.”
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.
Though teen suicide has dropped since its peak in the 1980s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fairfax saw 10 youths die by their own hands in 2013, a five-year high. At Woodson, it is an unavoidable subject.
Karen Garza, Fairfax County’s public schools superintendent, said that she encourages students, teachers and parents to talk to one another if they need help. On May 17, the school system plans to host a countywide event that will focus on mental health. “We are all profoundly saddened by the untimely deaths of our students, and our thoughts remain with the families and friends impacted by these losses,” Garza said.
Two suicides at Woodson in 48 hours marked the second time this year that has happened at a Fairfax County school. County officials said two Langley High School students committed suicide in January within a day of each other, though investigators also said those deaths appear unrelated. The Langley suicides deeply affected the close community in McLean, and the recent losses at Woodson stoked old memories among the student body.
In January 2011, 15-year-old Nick Stuban, a sophomore and rising star on the Woodson Cavaliers football team, committed suicide after he became mired in school discipline hearings for buying synthetic marijuana.
“There are many things that play into an individual’s decision to take their own life, and trying to grasp at understanding that is very difficult,” said his father, Steve Stuban. “You’re left with the why, the why did this occur, and a sense of guilt of ‘what could I have done?’?”
Cameron Kilby, a Boy Scout, acolyte at his church and sophomore cross-country runner at Woodson, took his life in the late summer of 2012.
A few months later, senior football player Bryan Glenn disappeared one day in October. He planned to attend the upcoming homecoming dance and had ambitions of serving in the military as a helicopter pilot. He was found dead a week later in a Fairfax park a mile and half from Woodson.
Then in April, 17-year-old junior Ethan Griffith jumped off a parking garage at the Annandale campus of Northern Virginia Community College.
Each of those tragedies was reawakened when the public address system at Woodson crackled to life during sixth period on the day Jack Chen died. Senior Killian Rodgers said he and his classmates froze. They sensed the announcement that was coming, after so many other deaths.
“The color just drained out of their faces,” Rodgers said.
There was little respite. Students were notified two days later of the junior who took his life after Jack. Many were attending a region semifinal basketball game in Woodson’s gym. The news rippled through the crowd as students checked their phones.
“Slowly, people just kept breaking down,” said Bailey Bishop, a senior.
Sydni Weissgold, 16, a sophomore, said students and teachers have been reaching out to one another — little acts of reassurance to get through this difficult time and to weave a safety net for any other vulnerable students.
Weissgold said friends are sending texts saying “I love you.” She was approached recently by a boy from her history class she rarely spoke with. He gave her a thumbs up and asked whether she was all right.
“It’s hard to make sense of it all,” Weissgold said. “You try to stay strong and stay together.”
A knock at the door
Jim Chen is at a loss. When he runs through the events of the days and weeks leading to his son’s death, he finds nothing amiss. No clue to what he overlooked.
There were no signs of depression. No outbursts. No withdrawal. Jack had maintained all A’s, except for a single B-plus in a math class. He rowed on the crew team and was a hurdler on the track team. The father and son had made plans to practice driving.
Then, on that chilly February morning, there was a knock at the door. Jack was dead, a police officer told his parents. “I said, ‘This is impossible,’?” Chen recalled. “?‘He was a happy boy.’?”
Jim Chen speculates that Jack’s skin medication, which can cause depression, might have played a role. “There was something going on in his mind, but he didn’t give me any chance to do anything,” Chen said. “My heart is aching.”
That same anguish has gripped five other Woodson families.
Rosella Glenn, Bryan Glenn’s mother, said Woodson doesn’t have the tools to help students with mental health issues. “How many more need to die before somebody wakes up and realizes there is a situation that warrants bringing in more resources to fight this problem?” Glenn said. “I’m tired of seeing flowers and signs around Woodson.”The Glenns said that in the weeks before their son died, he was “at the high point” of his life. There was no explanation for his death, the Glenns said, and they find his suicide hard to accept.
“People need to ask more questions about why this is happening,” Rosella Glenn said. “It could be their kids next.”
Gayle Griffith lost her husband, Matthew, in 2011, when he died of a heart attack. Less than two years later, her son Ethan committed suicide.
The warning signs didn’t appear obvious at first, Griffith said. A straight-A student and Woodson track athlete, Ethan’s slipping grades appeared to be fallout from his father’s death. He was known to help his friends work through math homework assignments in the cafeteria during lunch, and he wore outlandish costumes during spirit days at the school.
“He tried to be friends with everyone,” Griffith said.
Ethan attended a suicide prevention seminar at Woodson last April, Griffith said, where he heard a nationally renowned speaker, Jordan Burnham, speak to teens about how he had leaped off a building and survived. Burnham uses his own cautionary tale to promote mental health awareness.
Days later, Ethan climbed to the top of a parking garage in Annandale and jumped to his death.
Griffith had been trying to get her son professional help. The Monday before he died, she arranged for a Woodson psychologist to evaluate him, but the meeting was canceled at the last minute for an emergency, Griffith said. That meeting was rescheduled for Wednesday; Ethan killed himself that Tuesday night.
In January, nine months later, Griffith was rummaging through her son’s closet and opened up his backpack. Inside, she found a paper Ethan had written for an Advanced Placement class a few months before he died. He had written that he felt depressed and had suicidal thoughts.
“The teacher didn’t follow their protocol,” Griffith said. “If a kid says he’s thought about it or writes about it in a paper, they are supposed to call their team of counselors. But that never happened.”
Griffith said she hopes that her son’s writings can serve as a tool to help teachers identify warning signs in students’ work.
The county’s assistant superintendent for special services, Kim Dockery, who met with Griffith, declined to comment on Ethan’s case but said the administration is planning to have all county teachers review their training for detecting the signs of suicide.
Other families believe the school is doing the best it can. Cameron Kilby’s parents credit Woodson Principal Jeff Yost and other school officials for their efforts to promote suicide awareness.
“It’s an extremely hard issue,” Jim Kilby said. “For folks who aren’t affected by it, the tendency is to look for a discrete cause. Having wrestled with this for a while, I don’t think it’s quite so simple.”
The Kilbys said that before their son died, teen suicide had never crossed their minds. Now teen mental health is a subject that the Kilbys think about often.
“For folks that aren’t connected to suicide, it is a harsh, jolting fact when this happens. It is for us, too, but it’s never too far away from our thoughts,” Jim Kilby said. “We never stop thinking about it.”
At Woodson, the latest deaths have revamped efforts in the school community to promote well-being. A student group recently started stress-reducing yoga sessions after class, and other teens have been trained as mental health first responders. In recent years, the administration has moved to restore the number of school psychologists and social workers lost during recession-era budget cuts.
Fairfax County high schools have begun posting suicide and depression hotline information on the front pages of their Web sites. School officials said the recent efforts already have had a positive effect: a number of students expressing self-harming feelings have reached out to the school system for help .
Yost said that Woodson’s challenges addressing mental health concerns among the student body are not unique.
“Every school has this issue,” Yost said. “Every school has to go about fixing it.”
Christine Moutier, the chief medical officer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said the number of suicides at Woodson is high, even if there appears to be nothing linking them. She said such suicide clusters could have very real effects on other students.
“The thing we are always concerned about is the phenomenon of suicide contagion,” Moutier said. “Youths are more susceptible to contagion, and research has found that 2 to 5 percent of teen suicides had a possible role of contagion. It is a vast minority, but it doesn’t mean the phenomenon doesn’t exist.”
Experts said the problem is particularly acute in the age of social media. Woodson teachers have observed students retweeting and favoriting the final messages from Jack Chen and the junior who died after him, rapidly exposing hundreds of students to the tragedies in an unfiltered way.
In a 2011 survey of Fairfax County youths, the most recent data available, approximately 16 percent of Fairfax eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders — a total of 4,840 students — considered suicide. A much smaller percentage of the student population — but more than 1,150 teens — admitted attempting suicide that same year, according to the survey.
But the numbers can’t capture the impact of each death. More than 500 people turned out for Jack Chen’s funeral. Friends produced a video showing old family photos of Chen frolicking with his sister, holding a football and playing piano.
“He was a great guy with all the smarts and talent to have a bright future,” Jim Chen said. “It’s unbelievable.”
Attachments:
Re: Parents seek action at Fairfax County’s Woodson High after suicides
Posted by:
Duped
()
Date: April 18, 2014 09:18PM
There's already a thread on this.
http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/2/1511302/1513715.html#msg-1513715
http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/2/1511302/1513715.html#msg-1513715
Re: Parents seek action at Fairfax County’s Woodson High after suicides
Posted by:
news patrol
()
Date: April 18, 2014 10:02PM
Duped Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's already a thread on this.
>
> http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/2/151
> 1302/1513715.html#msg-1513715
This the official thread. All other threads on this topic are unoffical.
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's already a thread on this.
>
> http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/2/151
> 1302/1513715.html#msg-1513715
This the official thread. All other threads on this topic are unoffical.
Re: Parents seek action at Fairfax County’s Woodson High after suicides
Posted by:
HGkPV
()
Date: April 19, 2014 07:25AM
news patrol Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Duped Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > There's already a thread on this.
> >
> >
> http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/2/151
>
> > 1302/1513715.html#msg-1513715
>
>
> This the official thread. All other threads on
> this topic are unoffical.
I hereby make this the official thread for all Woodson Suicides. Are you going to also include all the unexplained unexpected deaths too? Remember there was that student killed in the so-called "Car accident" the same time as the 2nd VRE incident.
-------------------------------------------------------
> Duped Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > There's already a thread on this.
> >
> >
> http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/2/151
>
> > 1302/1513715.html#msg-1513715
>
>
> This the official thread. All other threads on
> this topic are unoffical.
I hereby make this the official thread for all Woodson Suicides. Are you going to also include all the unexplained unexpected deaths too? Remember there was that student killed in the so-called "Car accident" the same time as the 2nd VRE incident.
Re: Parents seek action at Fairfax County’s Woodson High after suicides
Posted by:
Actually...
()
Date: April 19, 2014 08:56AM
There are more annual suicides in this country than there are traffic fatalities. Teens and high-schoolers in particular have special factors that elevate their risks of both. It is not suprising that some teens around here routinely perish from either one. All parents can do is try hard and hope for the best, knowing that in some cases, that isn't what's going to happen.
Re: Parents seek action at Fairfax County’s Woodson High after suicides
Posted by:
Kate Yanchulis
()
Date: April 30, 2014 09:09AM
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
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