The Oregon State Board of Education has instructed the state education department to begin working on a plan to help schools prevent students from committing suicide.
The board gave the instruction after hearing testimony from James Hutchinson, a parent from Lake Oswego, Ore., whose teen-age son committed suicide nearly two years ago.
“I became an expert on teen-age suicide the hard way,” Mr. Hutchinson said, adding that “most schools don’t want to discuss suicide--the fear is that if we talk about it, it will give [the students] the idea.”
He recommended that the board consider prevention programs that would be built into school curricula and would include training more school personnel to detect the symptoms of suicidal behavior.--cc
