Classes canceled after two students die three days apart

Two seniors at Arapahoe High School in Centennial died three days apart this past week, sending mental health workers and counselors onto a campus still operating under the shadow of a deadly shooting in 2013 and a rash of student suicides in the area last year.

Classes were canceled at the high school on Wednesday following news of the second death. School and district officials are not saying how the two students, a boy and a girl, died.

But their deaths have left students stunned and disbelieving, 18yearold Joe Roberts said. Roberts, a senior at nearby Heritage High School, helped start an effort to wean kids away from the negative effects of social media after backtoback student suicides in the Littleton Public Schools district at the beginning of the last school year.

“It’s just heartbreaking,” Roberts said of this week’s student deaths. “Both of them are going to be missed by a lot of people.”

The boy died early Saturday morning, while the girl died Tuesday, according to Arapahoe High Principal Natalie Pramenko, who sent communications to parents and members of the school community on two separate days following the deaths.

The letters offered no details of the teens’ deaths, but outlined the help Arapahoe High students could get to deal with the loss.

“There are no words to describe the grief we are experiencing,” Pramenko wrote in her second statement. “Like you, we are struggling with this loss. And while we, as adults, are grappling to understand, it’s important that we take care of our students, staff and parents.”

After the first death, counselors and administrators, as well as Littleton Public Schools’ support team, were available to students at the high school that Saturday as well as Monday, when classes resumed.

Counselors and mental health workers were back at Arapahoe High on Wednesday following the second death. The school was opened and students checked in for attendance. But there were no regular classes, and students could take part in many activities, including studying and checking in with counselors, Pramenko wrote.

The high school “is a safe place for our students and parents to be with their friends, to support one another, and to get help if they need it,” Pramenko wrote.

Classes at Arapahoe High School will resume Thursday, but mental health professionals will remain at the school to offer any help to students, she added.

Neither Pramenko nor Littleton Public Schools Superintendent Brian Ewert responded to requests for comment from The Denver Post. The Arapahoe County sheriff’s and coroner’s offices also couldn’t confirm the cause of the students’ deaths.

Roberts praised the Littleton school district’s handling of the aftermath of the two deaths, getting professionals immediately onto the campus to help students.

“Arapahoe has gone through so much from the shooting to the suicides last year,” Roberts said. “They are handling it as best as they can.”

In December 2013, an 18yearold student entered the school armed with several weapons and fatally shot 17yearold Claire Davis. The gunman later shot himself in the head.

Last year, an Arapahoe High School junior took his own life in late August. The following night, another Littleton Public Schools, an eighthgrader at Powell Middle School, killed himself.

Earlier, in January 2017, a 16yearold girl at Arapahoe High also died by suicide.

Their deaths, along with other teen suicides in the Denver area, sparked outrage among lawmakers, who this year sponsored bills aimed at getting more counseling for students thinking about ending their own lives. They failed to garner enough votes.

One successful measure allowed $400,000 to be disbursed among Colorado schools to train teachers, office personnel and other school employees in suicide prevention strategies. The legislation authorizing the funding passed before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released updated numbers showing that between 1999 and 2016, suicide rates in Colorado increased by 34.1 percent.

Suicide, meanwhile, is the leading cause of death among 10 to 24yearolds, according to the Colorado Health Institute.

In Denver, the current school year opened tragically with news that a 9yearold student at Joe Shoemaker Elementary School had died by suicide in late August after his mother said he was bullied for coming out as gay.

The effort spearheaded by Roberts and other Littletonarea students — called “Offline October” — asks that teens unplug this month from the internet and social media and deal with each other on a facetoface basis. More than 1,500 students at 240 schools and universities in 26 states have joined the movement.

“It’s just that we want teens to connect with one another and maybe learn to help one another,” Roberts said. “Maybe we can help avoid what’s happening at all these schools.”