Bullying and suicide in School District 25

Bullying – it’s a word that carries immediate and intense feelings, especially in the Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25.

Last spring, the community was shaken after two high school students took their own lives, and several others attempted suicide. Since that time, many in the community have been crying out for the district to do more, saying the district isn’t doing enough to stop bullying.

Quinn Dayley, Camille Robbins and Wyett Olsen are all students in Pocatello High School, and they’re all part of Sources of Strength, a suicide prevention program starting up in the high school.

As student leaders they are available for any student who is feeling alone, or feels like suicide is an option. The students say any student feeling bullied can come talk to them, and together they can take the situation to the administration.

“Most kids don’t intentionally go out to try and hurt someone else,” said Dayley, a senior. “I mean, high school’s hard enough. We don’t wake up and try to go hurt someone else, you know?”

This program is very important at PHS, especially in the light of one student’s decision to end her life. It was earlier this year, on February 18 when 16-year-old Maddie Beard took her own life. The community called on the school district to stop kids from being bullied.

But all of this brought up the issue of the definition of bullying. The school district and parents seem to have different definitions.

“It’s become sort of this phrase that catches a lot of things,” said Lisa Delonas, principal at PHS. “Trying to wade through what’s really bullying and what’s poor interpersonal skills is a challenge.”

Delonas said the definition of bullying is repeated, intentional and targeted to a specific student. She said there are very few cases of actual bullying in schools. A lot of what she sees are one-time interactions.

She said she’s experienced many time where students take something the wrong way, and the students see it too.

“I know a lot situations where kids blow things out of proportion,” said freshman Wyett Olson. “I mean, it could start out as something small, but they make a big deal out of it. They change their story a lot just to make people feel bad for them.”

Camille Robbins, another student involved with Sources of Strength, said parents should know kids are not either the bully or the victim. Sometimes they’re both.

“They need to understand that things happen at school, but not everything that they hear from their student is what actually happened,” she said. “That’s because there’s two sides to the story.”

Robbins said students have begun speaking out against bullying more after Maddie’s passing, but she said there’s still a lot of things that could be solved by simply communicating with someone, whether you have a problem with them or think they can help you resolve an issue with someone else.

“Those that were friends with her, I think we became closer,” Robbins said. “Not just as a group of Maddie’s friends, but definitely as a school.”

But it wasn’t just friends and family who felt her absence.

“It was devastating,” said Delonas. “It very much impacted students, and the faculty and the administration. Very much so. We carry that every day.”

Delonas went into detail about how she met with students every day, all day for at least the week after Maddie took her own life.

“Probably one of the most difficult things was immediately meeting with kids that knew her,” Delonas said, “and hearing them say that they had some clue. That they had heard her talk about this or she had given some indication something wasn’t right, but they hadn’t taken it very seriously.”

Delonas took a moment to remember the girl she knew as a student. Her family and friends she was made fun of for being either bisexual or a lesbian.

“Maddie was a very happy child at school. She appeared to be very happy, outgoing, involved in lots of things, bubbly,” Delonas said. “Her friends would tell us ‘she would say things, but her behavior didn’t match her words, so we didn’t take much of that seriously.'”

Delonas said this brings up the bigger issue of identifying students who may be suicidal, and reporting their concerns to an adult right away. She said there’s nothing wrong with addressing a problem– how else will you get it fixed?

“Lots of times kids thing they’re betraying someone if they tell, and that’s a culture we have to change,” she said. “There’s a difference between tattling and reporting, and it’s important to report things that are potentially dangerous to someone or someone else.”

Delonas said it’s something that’s hard for everyone involved to come to terms with, that maybe someone close to her could have talked her out of taking her own life.

“It was heartbreaking to know there were people that knew she was in pain, and didn’t know how to deal with that, didn’t know how to respond to that as a friend, as a peer,” she said. “Because I certainly think if we had known, anybody had known, adults had known in her life, lots of intervention could have occurred, and things would have had a very different outcome.”

But many are saying suicide and bullying is still a problem, because several students have attempted suicide after Maddie’s passing. So, what’s the solution? How do we make it stop?

“You know, if you really have a concern that you think there are things going on in the schools, we have an open door policy,” Delonas said. “Come in and visit the schools.”

Delonas said parent involvement is huge. She said it shouldn’t be a parents versus the school district situation. She said everyone has the same goal of keeping kids healthy in all senses of the word.

She said becoming a volunteer with the school district is very simple. It takes a background check and some paperwork filled out at the School District 25 offices on 3115 Pole Line Road in Pocatello. You can call them at 208-232-3563.

Delonas also brought up the idea of labeling kids, especially as victims. She said it does nothing to help empower them to rise above. She said while no one should ever blame the victim, there are ways to be a victim of bullying and be empowered as a person.

She said the ultimate goal is to not have bullying, something that obviously needs to happen on the opposite side of the victim. She said schools have severe punishments for bullying, and they can usually get bullying to stop if they know about it.

Delonas said it’s hard for anyone to focus on how things are going well when you feel like you have been bullied.

“Look for all the positive things and point those out, because it’s really easy for us to see the negative,” she said. “It’s harder for everyone to see the positive. Even kids.”

Delonas said out of hundreds of good things happening in a school, the things that tend to get the attention are the one or two negative things. She said people seem to just be drawn to the negative, including the media. She said it’s hard to spread the news when good things are happening, but when there’s a problem it seems to grab all the attention.

The school district has about a dozen different anti-bullying and suicide prevention programs in place, including Sources of Strength. That program specifically focuses on hope, help and strength for students in need.

Overall, the message from the students and administration at Pocatello High School is the same: be swift to love, make haste to be kind.