How does/did your school handle a student biting the dust?

[J Dog]

Yesterday, this happened:


Indy teen riding scooter dies after he's hit by car

A 17-year-old Indianapolis youth died Monday after he was struck by a car while crossing a Northside intersection.

Antwan Viverette, of the 3000 block of North LaSalle Street, was riding a low-to-the-ground motorized scooter when he was struck.

The teen was struck around 2:40 p.m. while crossing 30th Street at Keystone Avenue, and was dragged 200 to 250 feet south on the pavement along Keystone before the motorist stopped. The boy suffered massive head trauma and died after being taken to Wishard Memorial Hospital, said Indianapolis Police Sgt. Matthew Mount.

Police closed area streets for about an hour while they investigated. The motorist, identified as Gajinder Pal Chawla, 56, Brownsburg, was driving a Pontiac sedan and had the right of way, police said. He said he did not see the teen who was not wearing a helmet.
The thing is, he went to my school. However, I don't see much emotion, not like at Northwest (a related school) where they mourned the loss of two students.

So, in this event, how did your school handle it?

[Comic_Mobsta]

Yesterday, this happened:


The thing is, he went to my school. However, I don't see much emotion, not like at Northwest (a related school) where they mourned the loss of two students.

So, in this event, how did your school handle it?Well me myself i'm a youth counsellor so the best thing to do is talk to them about it.Give them your time and listen to the kids.

[curefreak]

i remember a kid who commited suicide and even tho i dont remember him being popula
r he was fondly remembered and people mourned his loss and i went to a pretty vacuous high school.

[Michael P]

An overwrought assembly with the popular kids pretending to have known he existed, and a page in the yearbook.

[clayholio]

Someone got hit by car while crossing the street when I was in high school. They used the library to handle any grieving students, and probably called in extra counselors. I don't remember having to do any more school work that day either. I don't remember anything beyond that, it's been a while.

[DubipR]

In high school, one of my good friends was shot and killed at some stupid party because he talked to the wrong lady. Any death is terrible, especially at a young age.

We had counsellors talk with the friends of his slained student. Its not easy, but you have to pull up your socks and continue living.

[borateen]

We had three suicides within two years when I was in high school. I don't remember what happened with the first one. The kid was a senior, I was a freshman. The second kid was my neighbor (copycat suicide), so I knew about it shortly after it happened, and there was a lot more hooplah over this one. Lots of counselors, quiet hallways, classrooms, and lunch room. The third one was very similar. It was a rough couple of years.

[Spackling Compound]

Yesterday, this happened:


The thing is, he went to my school. However, I don't see much emotion, not like at Northwest (a related school) where they mourned the loss of two students.


And the term "biting the dust" isn't exactly something from the "Compassionate Friends" handbook.

[fly on the wall]

An overwrought assembly with the popular kids pretending to have known he existed, and a page in the yearbook.

We had a couple of suicides/ODs and a kid drowned on Outward Bound. The suicides got nothing. The drowned kid got a page in the yearbook. Absolutely nothing was done for any of them when they actually died. Kind of callous since they let us have a big assembly and a mock burial for the four kids killed at Kent State.

We didn't know the Kent State kids.

[Slam_Bradley]

I don't remember any students dying while I was in school. But given the time period, I'd imagine a page in the yearbook and everyone going on with life. Trauma hadn't been invented yet.

[Lubichev]

I remember a kid getting struck by lightening when I was in Primary. All we got was a lesson about why we shouldn't play outside during a storm. She was raking leaves when a bolt got her. Blew the soles of her feet off.

[Guapo Méndez]

A classmate in Junior High was killed driving his mini-motorcycle home. A drunk driver went the wrong way on a one-way street and got him.

My all-boys catholic school cancelled lessons the following day and offered the school to the family for the services. We had his wake at the school chapel -his futbol uniform on top of the casket-, then we had mass -attended by the entire student body, all in gala uniforms.

The priest was available for anyone who wanted to talk to him.

[J Dog]

And the term "biting the dust" isn't exactly something from the "Compassionate Friends" handbook.

Look, thing was, I ain't not know him, so I ain't not feeling anything.

I have regards to the family, yes, but the kid was driving on a tiny bike. And, the only thing I knew about him was that he went to this school.

He wasn't even mentioned in the morning announcements.

[Josh S]

I remember two kids dying when I was in highschool. One got stomped by a bull and the other commited suicide. In both cases they announced the deaths on the PA and there was a little picture of them in the yearbook.

Edit: There was also a kid who died when I was in 6th grade, and when he passed classes pretty much halted for a week. We still went to school, but the teachers pretty much just had as sit there. It was very surreal.

[Matt Algren]

An overwrought assembly with the popular kids pretending to have known he existed, and a page in the yearbook.
I was hoping that was just my school. We, however, added picture after picture of him throughout the yearbook, as if to purge people's guilt from laughing at him. (This was a probable suicide, of course.)

J Dog, chances are that this is the first time most of you have had to deal with death, let alone unexpected death, on a personal level. There are bound to be some people trying to figure out where the boundaries are.

[berk]

When I was around 8 years old or so a kid not from our school but from another one nearby died in some kind of accident, I think drowning. He was laid out in an open coffin in the Anglican church, which was right across the street from our school, and they had us all march in single file past his coffin so each of us could see him. I think the idea was not only to have us pay our respects, but to show us youngsters what death looked like, that it could happen to anyone, even someone as young as us.

[sixstringguild]

This is kinda related. I will never forget the day in junior high when we found out that a kid on our class lost his entire family (brothers and mother) in a freak lawnmowing accident. There was an explosion that instantly killed them I guess. This came a week to the day after his dad died in a motorcycle accident of some sort. The school counselor came in at the beginning of the day to tell us this before our fellow student came in. You could hear a pin drop. So many of the girls were sobbing. Even the class jerk tried to be nice to him. He was nerdy and not so good looking so no one really hung out with him. He and I talked every so often since we were of the "nerdy" kind and when we walked together to the next class, I was so speechless. He said something like "things haven't been going well for me lately..." and all I could say is "I know, man, I know..." and I just had nothing to say because nothing I could say would help him feel better about things. Man, that was rough. I almost started crying in the hall just walking with him...

[MarvelKnight]

I think someone must have died when I was in high school. I never payed much attention to anything in high school. I got up in the morning, went to school, went to practice, and went home. I'm apathetic, if I don't know you, I don't care. Even if a member of the family dies, I feel no emotion.

[K'Nort]

Well we wouldn't call it biting the dust, even when dealing with strangers. But that's a time and tide thing.

There were several deaths when I was in high school. No cancelled classes and no assemblies, even for the four students in a single drunk driving wreck (one fatality there, plus some permanent injuries). It probably seemed exploitative or an invasion of the family's privacy. There was a single memorial page (not one per person) in each yearbook, I think. High school of about 1,200; the only high school in a town of about 35,000.

[i_mmmchocolate]

No deaths during the four years I spent as a high school student.