Schools at a loss: How districts handle teen deaths varies

"I didn't know these kids but yet I was still affected by their passing, and I thought I needed to try and help get the word out about it so maybe there will be less suicides among teens in the future," junior Norchelle Halbert wrote.

Riverton High has had a rough year. In addition to the two suicide deaths, three other students lost their lives in other ways.

"I think that anytime you have a student that passes away, kids this age have a hard time understanding and relating to that," Park said.

But it is particularly hard when it's suicide.

"From an entire school standpoint, it's just devastating," he said. "It just seems like the whole school is on an emotional downer."

Dealing with the students, teachers and parents in the wake of suicide was new territory for Park.

The Jordan School District has a section on suicide in its crisis manual. Guidelines for school administrators include meeting with parents in person, attending funeral services, sending flowers and honoring the deceased student.

Riverton made an announcement over the intercom after Blake and J.J. died, but it did not include how they died. Park alerted their teachers individually and called in grief counselors for students. He attended the viewings for both boys.

"A suicide is treated the same as an accident because the value of a life is the same," Colton said.

That might not necessarily be a good thing. Suicide brings a different set of emotions into the equation. Not only are there sadness and mourning but also confusion.

The locker question is one Greg Hudnall has dealt with many times over the years.

As executive director of the Provo-based Hope Task Force, he advises schools to allow the family to empty the locker. He recalled accompanying a family on one occasion. They went to the school at night, opened the locker and clutched and smelled each item as it was removed. This raw, emotional step is important for a family's grieving process, he said.

"It was their moment," Hudnall said. "It was private. It allowed them to grieve. . . . It was so valuable."

Park didn't want to aggrandize the Riverton suicide deaths but at the same time wanted to sympathize and empathize with their friends and family.

"It's a fine line because you don't want to make a big deal of it so other kids see it as a way to get attention," he said. "Yet you don't want to ignore it because these are students that you grow to love."

Park said he discouraged efforts to memorialize the boys at school. But it is hard for students to do nothing when everything inside urges them to do something.

"Being really close to Blake, I felt a great deal of loss," said Riverton High marching band drum major Jason Weimer. "I was really confused about why and stuff like that."