By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The suicide of a Princeton High School freshman two weeks ago inflicted a “terrible loss” and led to calls for destigmatizing mental issues, officials and students said Tuesday.
In the first school board meeting since 14-year-old Owen Bardzilowski’s death, officials touched on the impact of the tragedy and the response to it by the town he left behind. School board president Andrea Spalla remembered him as a “friendly, outgoing, beloved child.”
“The entire community has been devastated by his death by suicide,” she said.
Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane touched on the outpouring of support from local clergy and counselors from nonprofit groups and others stepping forward to help.
“Our efforts to help our students and our community will continue,” he said.
The district, he said, would review its k-12 health curriculum through the year and talk with students on ways to destigmatize mental health issues.
“And as part that process, we will consider the ways that we can build resiliency in our youngest learners and teach them strategies for reducing stress,” he said. “We will look at where we teach explicitly about the signs of suicide and help students feel comfortable asking for help for themselves and for their friends.”
Students want to be part of the conversation. Princeton High School senior Brian Li, a student representative to the school board, said he and fellow senior and student representative Abby Emison would work with others to produce a “non-intrusive survey that will help provide the district with insight on mental health.”
“Keeping the welfare of the students in mind, we are taking our time approaching the topic, so that we do not negatively impact anyone in the process,” Ms. Emison said.
The survey results, Mr. Li continued, would help in forming what he described as a “mental health council” at the high school that two other students have proposed.
“The program will focus on destigmatizing and generating productive discussions around issues that are too far often viewed as taboo,” he said.
Nadia Shabab Diaz, a senior at Princeton High School, addressed the board and shared how she battled and overcome clinical depression and an eating disorder. She said she found “a silence” about mental health issues among her fellow students.
“The environment perpetuates stress and discourages peers to speak of their struggles,” she said, “thereby promoting the notion that those struggling with mental health are outsiders.”
Ms. Shabab Diaz is one of the students who have proposed the mental health awareness campaign that Mr. Li had mentioned earlier.
“Through this project, we aim to open the conversation about mental health and promote students to share their stories so that they may get the help necessary for recovery,” she said. “We hope to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health in our community, make resources available to our student body and educate both students and teachers on the importance of mental health.”
