Hoffman H.S. questions T-shirts’ intent

Students and administrators at Hoffman Estates High School Friday briefly disagreed over whether the distribution of anti-bullying T-shirts was the proper way to honor the memory of a freshman girl who committed suicide last weekend.

Students were asked to stop distributing and wearing the T-shirts near the entrance to the school at the start of the day Friday morning. But after a meeting with Principal James Britton, they were allowed to continue doing both in the cafeteria at lunchtime.

Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 spokesman Tom Petersen said the initial distribution of the shirts had created problematic congestion near the entrance to the school early in the day. Furthermore, administrators felt they were honoring the girl’s family’s wishes as well as following their own beliefs by trying to draw a distinction between two otherwise positive messages of stopping bullying and celebrating the student’s life, he added.

“We felt administratively that the T-shirts didn’t reflect the family’s wishes,” Petersen said. “We just didn’t want to do anything to connect the two issues.”

Petersen added that the district is not purporting to claim no incidents of bullying ever occur on school property, but that it does not believe — based on contact with the student’s family this week — that such incidents were a basis of her suicide.

But based on a mutual understanding that preventing bullying is a positive message in and of itself, the students were allowed to freely distribute and wear the “Stop Bullying @ HEHS” T-shirts midway through the school day Friday, Petersen said.

Efforts to reach the family Friday were unsuccessful. A wake and funeral for the student are scheduled for next Wednesday evening at her family’s church.