The school recently had its first presentations for juniors and seniors on suicide awareness and prevention. This is the second year in which these presentations have been mandatory, thanks to Ohio House Bill 123. Since the start of 2023, schools have had to implement one-hour-long presentations on suicide awareness and prevention, violence awareness and prevention and social inclusion.

Solon High School social worker Adriana Ripma explains how the school puts together the presentations for students.

“The state of Ohio, starting last year, put [forth] requirements that all schools within the state had to provide three hours of education to all students,” said Ripma. “The way that we put it together is, Mrs. Lurie, who is a facilitator here, myself and the administration and counselors all kind of sit down to determine what that can look like or what that will look like for the school.

“The state puts in set requirements and set curriculum that you can use and we use SOS, which stands for signs of suicide, and we use that curriculum with all of our students.”

Sponsored by representatives Glenn W. Holmes and Gayle Manning, the bill was passed on March 24, 2021, but only came into effect last year. It is aimed at decreasing violence, loneliness and suicide among students. According to the Ohio Department of Health, deaths by suicide in Ohio increased 8% in 2021, the same time at which the bill was passed. This came after a two-year decline. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the 2021 rate was estimated to be nine in every 100,000 people for individuals aged 14-18 years. These numbers are the background in which the bill came to fruition. More recently though, in 2023, the Jed Foundation found that 22% of high school students report having seriously considered suicide in the past year and 60% of American students report feeling lonely according to Charlie Health.

Senior Rachel Pawlicki said that while she felt the presentation was good and better than the year before, some of the advice seems to be simple common sense.

“I feel like they didn’t really go into detail on why someone might be feeling suicidal,” Pawlicki said. “It’s not just like a cold you can catch, you know?

“I feel like [the senior year]’s video was better, though. It was less cheesy than before.”

Senior Darrell Zhang said that before the presentation, he was aware that suicide was a problem because the school would do presentations like these every year. He said that the presentations aren’t especially helpful for him, but they’re beneficial in general because the information is still important.

“Eventually, if you keep making jokes about stuff like that it just kind of gets downplayed, so everyone just needs a reminder,” said Zhang. “I heard about [Ohio House Bill 123] once and then I forgot about it. But I feel like Solon’s good at doing that kind of [mental health] stuff.”

However, Zhang didn’t feel like the presentation gave him any new information that previous presentations didn’t have.

Another mandate from the bill is that each school must have a team assembled to assess behavior, determine if it is a threat and intervene before it becomes one.

“That [is] the administration team, the counseling team, as well as the school psychologists,” Ripma said. “We’re all trained to be able to do these assessments. Typically, it will be myself and Mrs. Lurie and the counselors working together, and then we bring in the admin as needed.”

The next presentations are set at different times for different grades: freshmen next month at the Freshman Mentoring Program and again in February, with juniors and seniors in April. These presentations will cover the remaining topics mandated by the bill.

Between the presentations and the behavioral assessments, Ripma said she feels the presentations are helpful overall, even if the students might think it’s cheesy.

“Knowledge is power,” she said. “I think educating the students to be aware of different signs that maybe they weren’t aware of and to know that there’s help within the school. I think there’s a lot of power within that.”

Even if the students aren’t taking everything seriously, a part of them is still hearing valuable information.

“If [students] take one thing away from [the presentations], it’s considered a win.”