Students tell Dist. 303 to beef up outreach efforts

If suicide enters the thoughts of a St. Charles Unit District 303 high school student, there just isn't a clear path to find help, said a panel of students at a community forum Wednesday night.

The six teens volunteered to sit on a panel and answer questions from district staff and the audience at the second community summit meeting focused on revamping the district's suicide prevention efforts. Travis Migner, Courtney Doyle, Derek Becker, Skye MacLean, Maggie Hamilton and Ryan O'Malley are all high school students in the district.

As a group, they delivered a clear message that suicide prevention efforts in the schools only supply information that fades quickly from memory, giving students few tools to deal with stress and depression.

"I, personally, have never gotten much information about suicide and depression in the schools," said Doyle, a junior at St. Charles East High School. "I know it's out there, but I don't exactly know where."

MacLean, also a junior at St. Charles East, carried that sentiment even further, saying most of the people she knows at school don't even realize they can talk to their school counselor about problems or difficult emotions they may be experiencing. Most students think the counselors are just academic advisers, she said.

Beyond school hours and during the summer, the students said they aren't well-informed about community and religious organizations they can turn to for help either.

The students also said the traditional high school stressors of grades and peer pressure about drugs and alcohol now have the added element of increasing expectations of perfection imposed on them by family, teachers and themselves. And school bullying has taken on a whole new form through Facebook and text messages that turn into rumors because sarcasm and jokes don't always translate well in short, electronic messages.

Panelists said they particularly want help identifying warning signs in friends who may be thinking about suicide. Several members of the panel said they had either lost a friend to suicide or had dealt with a situation where someone they knew lost someone close and had a hard time dealing with it.

There have been six student suicides in the district within the past seven years. For perspective on that rate, Jerry Ciffone said he's been a social worker for 20 years but has dealt with only one suicide. He currently works at South Elgin High School in Elgin Area School District U-46. Ciffone, who is a District 303 resident, said he was surprised to hear the students say they didn't even know where to find a social worker in their schools.

"I think that's something the district will work on changing," he said.

Indeed, the district has already shown it wants to address the problem quickly. A suggestion was made at the first student suicide summit two weeks ago to implement the Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Program in schools. The district announced St. Charles East High School has already formed a student chapter and hosted its first meeting. St. Charles North High School is looking to get its own Yellow Ribbon program running when school starts next fall.

The next suicide summit meeting will be 7 p.m. June 3 at the Charlestowne Mall.

Outreach: Next summit meeting scheduled for June 3