The Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) approved a new Suicide Prevention Policy for grades K-6 at its Dec. 4 meeting.
Policy 5141.53 is a revised version of the district’s original K-12 Suicide Prevention Policy 5141.52. The original policy was last reviewed in 2021 and is required to be reviewed every three years. A regular monitoring review from the state found that while the policy is legally compliant, it needed to be separated into two separate policies: one for K-6 and one for grades 7-12.
The new policy contains similar information as the original, but written at a 6th grade reading level or lower so that younger students can understand it. Since the original policy 5141.52 already aligned with the state’s model policy, it was only edited to update the dates and to specify that it is for grades 7-12.
The board was presented a revised draft version of the original policy with the minor changes mentioned above and approved it at its Nov. 20 meeting.
The district’s suicide prevention and intervention strategies include:
- Staff training and development
- Teaching problem-solving, coping and resiliency skills to promote mental and socioemotional well-being for students, as well as how they can identify and respond appropriately to warning signs in their peers.
- Offering school-wide practices that create an inclusive and supportive learning environment so students can develop healthy relationships and feel connected.
- Informing parents, guardians and caretakers about warning signs, the severity of the suicide problem among young people and community resources available.
- Establishing district and school-site crisis intervention teams to ensure the policy is properly implemented.
The policy urges teachers and staff to pay close attention to students who might be at higher risk of committing suicide such as students with substance use problems, mental health issues, are in the foster care system or homeless.
All teachers and school staff will participate in a mandatory annual training that will teach them about suicide awareness and prevention.
The full recently approved policies can be found here and here.
