Cape Breton school board suffers its third student death this year
The deaths of three students, including a 13-year-old girl who killed herself on Father’s Day, have a Cape Breton school board looking for ways to increase supports as students wrap studies for the summer.
The parents of Madison Wilson, of North Sydney, spoke out Tuesday after their daughter’s death on Sunday.
Amylynn Wilson and Chris Royal told reporters that bullying led to her death and more needs to be done to ensure it doesn’t happen to other young people.
Darren Googoo, chairman of the Cape Breton Victoria School board, said Wednesday that three students have lost their lives this year and the board is drafting a letter to the provincial Education Department with the idea of starting a dialogue on the issue.
“Our students are dealing with the trauma associated with the loss of a schoolmate and going into the summer months we want to make sure that we have a more coordinated approach with our provincial Madison Wilson, 13, took her own life, and her family blames bullying.
partners in health, in terms of providing services,” Googoo said in an interview.
Googoo said one of the challenges facing schools is that they only provide support services for students from September to June.
“We recognize that there may be some students that will be struggling with this over the summer so we want to make sure there will be services available,” he said.
Googoo added that services are in place in the community that can provide-help and it’s a matter of making people aware.
“The mental health unitat the regional hospital is available, there are clinicians, so the mental health model is in place, we just need to make sure that our students are aware of it.”
Royal couldn’t be reached by The Canadian Press Wednesday, and Amylynn Wilson did not respond to a request for an interview.
On Tuesday the distraught parents told reporters that their daughter Madison was subject to verbal abuse at school and through social media. They said they didn’t know anything about the severity of the situation because their daughter hid her feelings behind passwords and security codes.
“Demand the passcodes to their phones, and Snapchat, and Instagram, and Facebook, and actually look sometimes because it’s hidden,” Wilson told CTV News. “We always don’t know what’s going on 100 per cent, I didn’t.”
Nova Scotia’s Liberal government has committed to introducing new legislation to replace its pioneering cyberbullying law inspired by the death of teenager Rehtaeh Parsons – although a firm date on when that will happen hasn’t been given.