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Episode 22: How To Respond To The Death Of A Student

I got the phone call that every school leader dreads.

One of my students had died. It was a Wednesday night in September, 1998. I got a call that one of my 9th Grade students, a 14 year old boy, had died. We will call him Caleb.

Caleb and his 13 year old friend were playing at a park near his home. Tragically, they were also playing with a gun. Caleb’s friend was not a student at my school. Caleb’s friend was holding the gun. The gun went off and Caleb was killed instantly.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened over the next few hours, the next few days, the next few months after Caleb was killed. The next morning, all three local TV news stations had their vans sitting in our school’s parking lot. Reporters from both major newspapers were there too. Our HS students and our teachers looked like zombies as they walked through the front doors of the school.

That awful phone call happened almost 25 years ago. As I look back, I can see that we did a really good job taking care of our students and staff. We handled things really well. But, that was not because we were ready. We did not have a crisis management team, we did not have a plan. What we had were a lot of really smart people that jumped into action and I believe that we got a lot of help from God.

One of my teachers has a saying, “We were lucky, not good.” When Caleb died, we handled things very well. But, we were lucky, not good. I hope that you never have to deal with the death of a student or a staff member, but I want to help you to be super prepared. I want for you to have a plan and then pray that you NEVER, EVER need to use the plan.

On today’s episode, I am going to teach you 10 Steps to responding to the death of a student:

  1. Establish a School Crisis Team
  2. Create a Plan in Advance
  3. Gather Facts
  4. Notify Staff, Students and Parents
  5. Deploy Mental Health Professionals
  6. Equip your Teachers
  7. Prepare For Media Coverage
  8. Funerals, Spontaneous Memorials and Memorials
  9. Special Circumstances (suicide, drug overdose)
  10. Conduct an After Action Review

I pray that you will NEVER have to use this plan. That said, now you will be ready if you do. Thank you for listening to the podcast and thank you for making a difference in the lives of the kids at your school.

Mark Minkus

I’ve created a FREE RESOURCE for you called “The Top 6 Ways To Protect Your School From a Lawsuit”. This is a 10 page pdf that will help you to keep your staff and students safe and help keep your school out of court. Litigation is expensive, time consuming and extremely stressful. This common sense guide will help you to be more intentional and proactive when it comes to protecting your school. You can grab “The Top 6 Ways To Protect Your School From a Lawsuit” at www.theprivateschoolleader.com/lawsuit. Thanks!

Please check out all of the free resources on my website that can help you serve and lead your school community. There are "Plug & Play PD's" (45 minute webinars with guided notes) as well as Top 10 Lists of Leadership Books, Productivity Books and TED Talks over at www.theprivateschoolleader.com/resources.

You can grab the show notes for today's episode at www.theprivateschoolleader.com/episode22 Please write a review of this podcast and help push this content out to more leaders. I would love to get your feedback about the podcast, ideas for future episodes and hear about how you are implementing these strategies in your life and at your school. You can email me at [email protected] Thanks!!