School district revises suicide policy

In response to concerns raised by parents and the community, the Crook County School District has made revisions to its new policy on suicide prevention.

“It’s a kinder terminology,” says Superintendent Mark Broderson, stressing that the overall goal is “about making it so it works for the kids and the staff.”

The new wording alters the policy to say that a student experiencing depression “may be in need of additional support” to benefit fully from the educational program of the school. Originally, the policy stated that such a student would be “unable” to benefit fully.

Instead of then noting that students experiencing depression “pose a danger to both self and possibly to others,” the policy now states that “additional steps may be taken as a safety concern for the student and others”.

“We went back to the drawing board,” Broderson says, explaining that the new version removes some of the wording that caused concern. The revisions were adopted by the Board of Trustees in September.

The new version is not necessarily the end of the road, however. According to Broderson, this policy is like many others in the school handbook: an ongoing work in progress.

“We’re going to continue to look at and update our policies, that’s something we always do,” he says.

In this specific case, “We are going to have some counselors and some special education people look at it,” he says. The district is also seeking input from the Wyoming Department of Health and the Wyoming Department of Education.

Policies are tough to perfect, the superintendent points out: even when a great deal of thought goes into the wording, they are always going to be open to the interpretation of the reader.

“This policy came out of Tracy Copenhaver’s office, who is the Wyoming School Board Association lawyer, and that’s where we generally get our policies,” he says.

“I’m going to have some people look at it and then we’re going to have a committee and see if they come up with ways to beef it up a little bit and make it more robust.”

As well as the revised policy, a number of recent decisions within the district have also been aimed at improving focus on mental health and emotional support. The Rachel’s Challenge program made available to all students and the community was one such effort.

“How can we do things better the next time and be ahead of this and pro-active?” is the question the district is asking itself, Broderson says, and the answer has been to look for positive changes.

“We’re not trying to take any shortcuts, we’re not trying to hide anything. We’ve had a rough year, it’s tragic what happened, and we are trying to learn from it,” he says, referring to the two suicides that have taken place recently within the school community.

“Any time you go through something like that, you reflect.”

The district has also introduced two new school counselors so that there is now one available in every building and two present in the Moorcroft K-8 due to the 400-plus student population. The counselors are there to provide support, Broderson says, by offering assistance in all the areas important to a young person.

“They do work on the mental health and social aspects of being in school, but they are also academic counselors. They do testing and, at the secondary level, a lot of work with students as far as making decisions about where they want to go, career interests, scholarship applications, post-secondary plans with recruiters, job sites or college selection,” he explains.

“At the elementary, obviously they are not looking so much at post-secondary, but they are looking at academic success, they’re looking at social interaction, emotional maturity, so that everybody is getting along together.”

The updated policy was approved on September 16 and is effective immediately.