just in case this isn't already the worst day of your life

Dear Ms. Bazelon:

I read with interest your article How Not to Prevent Bullying  this morning, especially the following:

“In the next scene, the mean girls are sitting in a classroom when an announcement comes over the loudspeaker: Jenna has committed suicide. What kind of school would tell kids about such an event in this numbskull way?”

I imagine you meant it as a rhetorical question, since it certainly seems ludicrous, but I have an answer for you: Wayzata High School, Plymouth, Minnesota. I lost my brother to suicide on February 9, 1998, when I was a sophomore in high school. The following morning I was pulled aside at the bell by a teacher, who wanted to advise me that the principal, Dr. Craig Paul, planned to announce my brother’s suicide over the PA system during the morning announcements. I was horrified. My family had spent most of the previous evening dealing with the police, the coroner, and notifying extended family; in short, most of my friends and all of my classmates were unaware of the event. I marched to Dr. Paul’s office and begged him not to make the announcement – my brother did not even attend that school. He replied that other students might need to avail themselves of counseling services, and flatly refused to delay the announcement until I could make it privately to a few close friends. He claimed it was school policy.

I posted the quote above on my facebook status today, with a snide response condemning the princi“pal” for his callous behavior, and I was surprised how many of my classmates remembered it, and thought it terribly inappropriate even when we were fifteen/sixteen years old. I remember he did it again a year or so later, when another student lost his brother to suicide, and I think it traumatized me all over again to relive the experience, and to think that my perspective had done nothing to change Dr. Paul’s.

He has now retired from the school district. My brief Google search today did not produce his contact information, or I would likely have written him instead of you…but I thought you might like to know that – in my experience, at least – the PA system is precisely how suicides are announced at school. And that brought me to my current question: what better way might there be? In this technological age, I’m tempted to suggest an email home, but certainly that wouldn’t reach everyone.

I know that your article was more addressed toward bullying and not suicide prevention, but I’d like to know your thoughts nonetheless. I assume this policy of broadcasting tragedy over the PA is still in place at my old high school, and I’m considering engaging the new principal to see if I can’t get it changed. I also wonder how many other schools operate on the same policy.

Sincerely,

Snatch (umm, that's not how I signed the actual email)