As we told you last issue, Southeast has lost a total of eight students this school year. Many students wanted to see more done around the school to recognize those losses.

Since the beginning of January, the Junior Student Government has been planning on creating posters for the students who have passed on this school year.

“Our junior StuCo class members felt that there needed to be a more visible representation of the students that we’ve lost,” Junior STUCO Sponsor Moira Swendson said. “So they came up with this idea of giving every student who’s passed away, no matter what the circumstances were of that situation, a poster with names and with their name written on it, and pictures to give a face to these things, because there have been students who just hear through the grapevine, but they need to see their peers.”

Each student’s poster was decorated with flowers and their names written in different fonts.

“We did this because we wanted each person’s posters to be unique and so we made the fonts differently and placed the flowers differently while still trying to keep them respectful. Each student was unique so we wanted our posters to be unique,” Junior STUCO Representative Abryana Sanchez said.

The posters were put up during lunch in the athletic entrance and not visibly displayed so that if students were still triggered by the death, it would keep them safe. During lunch, the students were able to sign their names and write a message to the students. The posters were put up April 18th through the 22nd and at the end of the week, the Junior STUCO class gave the posters away to the respective families.

“It’s always a tragic loss when you lose one student but this year, but having lost eight I think here at the end of the year, being able to send these posters to the family is going to be very meaningful to them to help the parents remember that even though time has passed, they’re still a living memory of their child in our building,” Swendson said.

If you or someone you know needs help, contact a counselor or:

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
• Crisis Text Line – Text HOME to 741-741
• Comcare Crisis Line 660-7500