Lake Zurich tragedies cause crisis team to come to HS

Due to recent LZHS student deaths, the school is responding with a crisis program in order to help students and faculty cope with the losses.

During and after any crisis situation, the social work team must always be available to talk. The school social workers set up a safe place for any student to talk.

“All day, [the social workers] make sure someone’s always available [to speak with],” Julie Rusniak, social worker, said. The social work team is always available to talk, according to Rusniak. “It depends on how big the crisis is, you can never get an accurate amount of how many people are going to be affected.”

The rest of the faculty and administration is also attempting to deal with the situation at hand.

“When something like this does happen, we will typically send out emails for all staff that we might have a possible situation, but we are working to confirm but to please be aware and if you notice or hear students talking or grieving then to make sure they have someone to escort them to student services office to help them through this tough situation,” Kent Nightlinger, principal, said. “Also, before that communication, we would convene of our crisis response team, which consists of social workers, school psychologists, and school nurse. All those people would meet to tell information we have and then they’d set up a conference room. We make sure they are prepared to help students to wish to see them or that we identify through what we hear and see.”

“I think these are great services and they need to be promoted more so that students are aware,” said Chris Seiden, junior.

The crisis program was initially set up to help students with coping with all of the tragedy occurring. Students agree that the events are troubling to students throughout the school.

Some students believe that the incidents were not addressed enough publicly with the school, and many students did not know about the Crisis Program.

“The school is just ignoring it all and they should make it more apparent for the students that knew them,” said Allison Pahios, sophomore. She believes that the friends and families of the students in these tragedies should have justice and that it would be respectful to address the crises.

“I think it’s depressing everyone. It brings a gray cloud over everyone’s day,” said Jillian Gallagher, sophomore.