Ryan was awarded Valley Middle School’s 2020 teacher of the year and lives in Carlsbad.
Crisis resources: If you or a loved one need help, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for free, confidential crisis counseling 24/7 at 1 (800) 273–TALK (8255) or Lifeline Chat at suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat. You may also visit San Diego County’s “It’s Up 2 Us” site — up2sd.org — or call the local hotline at 1 (888) 724-7240.
I do not pretend to know if America’s turtle’s pace at reopening schools with in-person learning is causing an increase in student suicides and tragic deaths, but it is a question that demands an answer. When a parent of one of my former middle school students told me there have been six teenagers die in a 5-mile radius in Carlsbad since June, the issue demanded I pay attention. Losing a child, especially a teen to suicide, is a heartbreak club no one wants to join.
Thirty-four years ago on a May sky-blue day, I paid my membership dues to this club when my 18-year-old baby brother, Bart, committed suicide on his birthday. The beginning of the end for my 7-year younger brother was his out-of-control drug use after being diagnosed with manic depression.
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After Bart died, night after night I dreamed he was going to commit suicide, and I had just enough time to rescue him. I’d sprint to save him — only to arrive seconds too late and then watch him die. Since I was the last person to see Bart alive, I couldn’t shake my guilt that I had not done enough to help him. He fooled me with his sunny smile as he drove away from me for the last time. Although the acute pain of his death eventually subsided, the loss of his presence in my life never left me.
It shaped my life.
After Bart’s death, my work’s sales quota didn’t seem as important anymore. I’d graduated with a business degree, but I returned to school and eventually earned my teaching credential. It took me many years of teaching to make as much money as I did one year after college in my sales job, but connecting with overlooked and troubled students gave me a new purpose.
Suicide is a complicated issue and rarely ever the result of just one factor. However, if we’d like to address its many facets, we must identify one contributing factor and corresponding solution at a time. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “Significantly higher rates of suicide-related behaviors appear to have corresponded with times when COVID-19 stressors and community responses (e.g., stay-at-home orders and school closures) were heightened.” Clearly, school closures and lack of adolescent socialization are contributing factors to suicide-related behaviors.
Further, since April 2020, children 18 years and younger have needed more mental-health-related emergency care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, “Compared with 2019, the proportion of mental health-related visits for children 12–17 years increased approximately 31 percent.” These mental health visits point to a bigger danger, outlined by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), that “90 percent of individuals who die by suicide experience mental illness.”
One brave, grief-stricken mother had the courage to address this issue. Joanna Munday lost her beloved son Jack not from suicide but from a desire to have fun and socialize. His life ended in a car crash two blocks from his house after 2 a.m. on June 24.
Valley Middle School Principal Nicole Johnston remembers 15-year-old Jack as a ray of sunshine. “Jack Munday was a marvelous athlete on Valley’s cross country and track teams,” he told me. “But what I remember most about Jack was his winning smile and heart for his fellow classmates.”
Jack’s mom spoke for all the brokenhearted parents when she told me, “When you are 15 and 16, all you have is your social interaction. Teenagers need school. Without school, kids become isolated and depressed. When suddenly everything is taken away from them, their friends, sports and even teachers, it’s too much! They’re hurting. They’re good kids. They’re athletes, scholars. They have their first jobs. They’re kind. They have their whole lives ahead of them. We must not sweep this under the rug.”
Yes, we must speak about it. Depressed and distressed kids need to return to school. They deserve to address their anxious feelings. In the United States of America, the land of the free, how did in-class learning become political? Educators, unions and politicians must address the problem and the issues leading to it.
We must allow students a safe choice of either online learning or returning to their pre-coronavirus education of brick-and-mortar in-class learning. If I had a chance to attempt to solve one of my brother’s complicated problems, I would have stopped at nothing to do so. While we can not redeem what was stolen from our youth during these last 15 months, we do have the chance to prevent more students from becoming depressed and possibly committing suicide — starting today. The tragedies speak for themselves.