A death at school: What school leaders should do

A former principal who led his school through the emotional and practical challenges arising from the passing of students and staff shares his insights.

As principal of a large high school for seven years, I faced the death of students and staff on several occasions. While not all leaders will face the number of tragedies as our school, they likely will find themselves confronted by the need to shepherd their school communities through these emotionally draining experiences at least once during their tenure. Death requires school leaders to act with compassion, care, and awareness that they’re modeling for young people how to grieve. Few better examples of servant leadership exist.

While one might assume that a leader acts naturally in these moments as if by some intrinsic grace, that is unlikely. Instead, leaders must act intentionally and in a well-planned manner. I have gleaned from my experiences some reflections on the intentional leadership required during times of death, fully acknowledging that death rarely knocks twice in the same manner and that my suggestions might not always apply. Still, I hope they provide a road map for colleagues who find they must help their communities deal with loss. My perspective is that of a principal, but I believe it can be helpful for all educators. In the end, every staff member has a role to play in supporting students and colleagues through difficult times.

Initial notification and early communication

The early morning phone call rarely brings good news. For me, that was the case on a first day back from spring break. School was starting in just a few minutes when I learned that a beloved English teacher died as he awoke for school. He was a young man with three school-aged children. It was completely unexpected. Staff respected him deeply, and students fought to get into his classes. I felt numb with shock and knew that the school community would be devastated. In this case, because his wife had called and spoken with one of my assistant principals, we had confirmation. In other cases, it is imperative that school leaders obtain firm confirmation before making any announcements. At these initial moments, your first questions must deal with verification. Phone calls to your police contacts and the family can help.

If possible, I seek out a few moments when I can reflect privately and prepare, especially if I knew the person well. This allows me to remember the person and to steel myself for the work ahead. Once you begin, another private moment might be hours away.

Activating the crisis leadership team

Pulling together the crisis leadership team and beginning to plan the school response should happen immediately. For me, when dealing with a death, my closest team included assistant principals, my administrative secretary, and the head of counseling. If close team members had a strong relationship with the person who died, spend the time required informing them privately. This behavior models the respect that you want to see from them as they help others. I am comfortable sharing my own feelings at these times. As the leader, I help to model how to grieve and bottling up my emotions is not the message that I want to convey to students or adults.

The focus in the initial meetings should be on communication. Everyone should walk out with a clear plan on how different individuals and groups will be notified. Unless timing absolutely disallows differentiation, communication rarely should be one-size-fits-all. I think about it as moving from the inner circle of closest relationships to the outer circle of people who knew the person least well. When in the center, your communication should be more private and personal. As you move outward, more impersonal approaches become acceptable.

Death requires school leaders to act with compassion, care, and awareness that they’re modeling for young people how to grieve.

Often, there is little time to plan and implement communications about the death. When our English teacher died, I was notified at 7 a.m. Students begin classes at 7:25 a.m. I felt compelled to finish our communication with our community by the class period immediately following our lunch — 11:30 a.m. I remember feeling like we were operating at hyperspeed, yet I believed firmly that we had to differentiate our approach depending on relationships.

Differentiating communications

Once my core team knew, we told the English department chair, then other department chairs because we needed them to begin planning for potential class coverage if the teacher’s closest colleagues could not teach their afternoon courses. We also needed coverage for the teacher’s morning classes. That was provided by teachers who were not told in those early hours why their colleague was not there.   Next, our counseling head notified and prepared the counseling staff while I called and spoke with the school’s parent leadership. As part of this conversation, I asked them not to text or call their own children. I explained that we were trying to time the announcement so that we could be ready to provide support and notify some close colleagues first, which they understood.

Before meeting with the full staff, I pulled together the English department. Again, as his closest colleagues, these staff members deserved to be told in a smaller setting. Delivering the horrible news in these settings is never as personal and private as you would like. I wrestle with the desire to talk individually with as many people as possible and the impracticality of being able to do so when you have a large faculty and limited time.

I then moved to the auditorium where the rest of the staff had been asked to gather. Our schedule includes one lunch for the entire school so we could pull everyone together midday, which for our school is really mid-morning. You must think ahead about what you are going to say and then say it in a direct and clear manner. You do not want to dance around the bad news. Leaving people guessing for even a short period of time is unfair. Let staff know that class coverage is available if they need it. (In all of my experiences, teachers have always chosen to stay with their students, but teachers should still know that class coverage is an option.)

Our next focus was informing students. I met with student government leaders and told them before making a public address announcement to the student body. When making these announcements, make sure the counseling staff is immediately available. Let students know where to go if they want to meet with a counselor. For students in our English teacher’s class at that time, we ensured that multiple adults were present in the room with them. We also made additional counseling staff available in his room for the remainder of the day.

The last step in this initial communication effort was to send an email blast and automated call to the parent community to prepare parents for conversations with their children that evening. You can reference resources on helping children cope with grief and post them on your web site.

Considerations for suicide deaths

Unfortunately, too often, suicide rears its ugly head in high school. During my first year as principal, a young man killed himself. With initial notification to the school community, you should understand the family’s request about identifying the cause of death. Identifying the cause of death is not the principal’s responsibility. Word will travel without you. Most important, in my opinion, is to respect the family’s wishes.

But tamping down rumors is your responsibility. Students will want to know more information and, at times, they will “create” information. When our student committed suicide, he had recently left the school for a neighboring district. Rumors circulated that he killed himself because we “kicked him out of school.” It was a difficult rumor to hear, but we wanted to respect the family and not entertain discussions about the cause. In these cases, teachers and counselors play a major role in trying to explain to students that despite their legitimate desire to understand why their peer would take his/her life, that at this early stage, they need to focus their attention on mourning the loss and respecting the family’s wishes.

Finally, given the attention created by a suicide in your community, a leader’s worst fear is that another student will decide to follow the same path. After a suicide, all adults on the staff should be asked to be super vigilant. Given counselor-to-student ratios in many schools, students see their counselors rarely but see their teachers and coaches every day.

Every staff member has a role to play in supporting students and colleagues through difficult times.

Social media

In difficult times, students, alumni, and a growing number of teachers communicate via social media. We cannot ignore this venue. During one summer break, we had two recent popular graduates die. In both cases, Facebook pages were created quickly. During the school year, knowing that students communicate so quickly via texting and Twitter and so on exacerbates that feeling of operating at hyperspeed as you try to implement a communication plan. At the same time, social media’s ability to communicate easily to a large audience can be helpful in getting word out about a tragedy and subsequent arrangements, particularly if reaching alumni is important. Ideally, counselors would tap into social media’s potential and use it to monitor student traffic, provide additional offers of support and identify students in need of grief counseling.

Coming together to grieve

Much like when you visit a home after a person has died, a school becomes a place for storytelling and remembering. Classrooms, hallways, and even a principal’s office become places to listen, share, laugh, and cry. This is not a time for normal operations. In most cases, staff should be directed to suspend tests and homework. They should share a personal remembrance and allow students to do the same. For students who were closest to the person who died, have a place for them to go where they can see their friends. Positive connections with their peers will be an important and effective coping outlet for most students. In my experiences, students usually “select” their own place on campus, and I have always been comfortable with their decision.

Assessing levels of need

While a death will often affect the entire school, some grade levels or classes will be impacted only marginally. Again, consider the inner to outer circle of relationships with the person. As unfair as it sounds, looking at a person’s popularity or number of personal connections in regard to assessing the effect on school operations is necessary. For example, we had another well-loved teacher die after a long illness. He had largely taught upperclass students and had been on leave for a year with his illness. When he died, very few students knew him, and most classrooms continued with instruction. I have relied on the professional judgment of my teaching staff to know how to best handle their own students. However, all students should have the option to see their counselor. We cannot predict when one person’s death might trigger feelings about another loss in a student’s life.

Spontaneous memorials

Spontaneous remembrances and memorials appear. Students and staff will want to share their feelings and stories in a more permanent way than just talking. Often, it involves a desire to establish a physical space where the person is remembered. For students, a locker can often become the initial place for notes, cards, and photos. Our English teacher had been “famous” for sending messages to students on yellow sticky notes. Before our eyes, the hallway in the English department became a long series of personalized messages on sticky notes in his memory.

Students might also organize an impromptu candlelight service. They will ask you how they can help the family. Fully support your students, parents, and staff in these endeavors. Your support and visibility at these physical spaces or events is important. I made sure to spend my days immediately following a loss wandering the halls and visiting classrooms. Staff and students need to see you, and they need to be able to connect with you and talk. There is no substitute for your presence and personal availability.

If you have not already had the opportunity, reach out to the family as soon as possible. The simple gesture of a phone call or personal visit allows the family to know how much the school valued their family member. From personal experience, these relationships with grieving families have been powerful and lasting. I believe the principal has a responsibility to help and support these families. From a human perspective, it is simply the right thing to do. From an educational perspective, you are modeling for your students how to grieve and how to help those who are suffering.

Negotiating the way forward

While you’re helping shepherd your community through a loss, you’re also responsible for an intentional return to “normalcy.” Yet, I caution anyone from moving too quickly. Grieving takes time. You have to negotiate carefully the road back. The starting point is with classroom instruction, which needs to resume almost immediately. With our English teacher, on the second day, I asked teachers to teach. Classes returned to teaching and learning. For some students, the work was not possible, and they could opt out to see their counselors.

Managing memorials

Impromptu memorial spaces should be allowed to continue. Be prepared for students to ask about more permanent remembrances such as tree plantings. Reassure students that their hearts are in the right place, but wait to make these decisions. Let them know that the family’s wishes should be considered and that it would be inappropriate to ask them at this time. The principal has to help students understand that such decisions are more long-term and can be considered down the road. At my school, we have always remembered students and staff with the creation of memorials and beautiful spaces, but these plans take shape over an extended period of time. In the case of a suicide, two conflicting interests develop. On one hand, you want to help the community remember the student; on the other hand, you don’t want a permanent memorial to be seen as potentially “glorifying” the act of suicide and unintentionally reinforcing another student’s suicide risk.

Funerals

As soon as you know the time and place for the funeral, help the family communicate the details. If the funeral is during school hours, provide as much flexibility with class coverage and coding student absences in order to allow students and staff to attend. In some cases, the family will want a small private funeral, and you will need to explain to students why they cannot attend. Often, at a later date, when the family has had some time to process its loss, schools can plan a memorial event or a celebration of the individual’s life that involves the broader school community.

Sometimes, the family will want a scholarship fund established at the school. This information is often published with the funeral announcement so a decision needs to be made quickly about how best to receive and report donations. Other decisions about a more permanent scholarship can be made later, but the basic bookkeeping needs to be decided early. Principals should learn whether their district has any restrictions on administering scholarships. In the absence of district restrictions, principals should still be aware that they are agreeing to have their school administer a scholarship, which can be a long-term commitment. Honoring a deceased student or staff member by recognizing current and new students with a scholarship can strengthen a school’s sense of community, but principals should be aware of the work involved.

Out of these very sad and tragic events, a school community can heal and become stronger.

Often the principal or a close teacher, mentor, or coach is asked to speak at a student’s funeral. During one summer, just a few weeks before school started, I spoke at two students’ funerals. I found it very challenging because I knew both students well, and their deaths resulted from car accidents within two weeks of each other and involved other family members as well. I felt a tremendous obligation to “get it right” for the families. One piece of advice that served me well was to talk with as many of the students’ friends and teachers before the service and to integrate their comments and themes into my remarks. After all, I was representing the larger school community, and so I had to speak for them as well.

After the funeral

Usually, once the funeral has ended and a few days have passed, the time to remove the impromptu memorials arrives. It can be difficult for students and some staff to understand why these physical remembrances need to go. Be careful and compassionate during this time. Explain to the person’s closest colleagues or the student’s closest peers that these memorials were constructed to be temporary. I have always tried to offer some of these items to the family. For example, when our English teacher died, our art department photographed all of the sticky note messages that stretched down the hall. We created a book of the photographs and gave it to the family. We also placed a copy in our media center, making a temporary  memorial into something more permanent and appropriate.

Personal belongings and presence

Obviously a student’s personal belongings need to be returned to the family. Whenever possible, I believe the principal should be personally responsible for bringing the belongings to the family. Many of my teachers have left the student desk and chair unoccupied for the remainder of the semester, and classmates have appreciated and respected this decision.

On a more technical note, it is important to remove the deceased student from your database. The family does not need to receive your funeral announcement about their child. Even worse, they do not need to receive a graduation announcement down the road. While other people in the organization take care of this detail, the principal should ensure that it occurs in a timely manner

With a teacher death, personal belongings in the classroom need to be removed. I have found that the gradual removal of items and letting students know they are going to the family works best. Another consideration deals with the replacement teacher. It makes sense to have other well-liked and well-known teachers at school take over these classes and have a substitute back-fill in their classrooms. This approach has always been well received by staff, students, and parents.

Permanent memorials

People have different opinions about establishing a permanent memorial on campus. Some suggest that school campuses can begin to look like cemeteries and should not allow memorials. I disagree. You can create functional and beautiful spaces on campus where community members are remembered, and these spaces have no resemblance to a cemetery. We have planted trees, installed benches and plaques, and created gardens. While future students might not recognize the name on the plaque, it sends a message that they belong to a community that values its members. These spaces are beautiful and functional, allowing students to sit and talk with their peers, read, and linger. A school campus should have spaces that encourage these behaviors. Of utmost importance, though, is to have a policy in place regarding permanent memorials that can serve as a guide for decision making.  In addition to family wishes, there are many considerations (e.g. space availability, costs, circumstances of the death) that shape decision making. Having these guidelines in advance helps minimize misunderstandings and disagreements that can undermine the sense of community.

Additionally, family, friends, and members of the school community may organize a fund-raising or other event that the school can help promote or fully embrace. In the case of one of the students killed in the automobile accident during the summer, friends and classmates organized a karaoke event to raise money for his favorite charity. It has become an annual event and a kind of class reunion. For the other student, family and friends organized an annual 5K charity run that is still promoted and widely attended by the school community. Indeed, while the first and most important goal in responding to a death is to support the immediate grieving of the community and to safeguard the well-being of students and staff, successfully facilitating that process can strengthen and extend the sense of community. I want to stress this point. Out of these very sad and tragic events, a school community can heal and become stronger.

Conclusion

School leaders are responsible for taking care of students, staff, and larger communities when a death occurs. An assumption that a good heart alone allows a leader to fulfill that responsibility seems naïve to me. Fulfilling our moral obligation to shepherd our community at these times of grief requires intentional leadership. The result can be a stronger and closer community.

CITATION: Garran, C. (2013). A death at school: What school leaders should do. Phi Delta Kappan, 95 (4), 18-22.