Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today.

This story was originally published by EdSource. Sign up for their daily newsletter

Before Michaella Huck graduated from high school in 2018, she struggled with depression and anxiety and didn’t know where to get help. She’d hear stories of students who died on “suicide hill” in her Los Angeles neighborhood of San Pedro. 

It took a trusted adult for her to realize how educators could help save a student at risk of suicide. That’s why she is among the advocates behind a new bill that would expand the role California schools play in youth suicide prevention, she said. 

“Not being able to always feel comfortable with the stigma in our communities, or talk to my parents about stuff, I (had) my high school teacher. She spent more time with me, and I confided in her,” said Huck, a youth advisory board member at the California Youth Empowerment Network, a co-sponsor of Assembly Bill 2003.

Introduced by Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, AB 2003 would task the state’s Commission for Behavioral Health to develop free suicide prevention training for students, staff and parents, enlisting school communities to the frontlines of the youth suicide epidemic. 

The proposal, which has passed the state Assembly, would also require schools that conduct suicide risk screenings to submit annual reports to inform state policy.

---

Suicide Prevention hotline

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, the following services can help. 

• Trans Lifeline Hotline, 877-565-8860
• 988 California Consortium of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, dial 988 to call, text or chat
• The Trevor Project, by phone, text or chat

---

Kendra Zoller, deputy director of legislative and external affairs at the California Commission for Behavioral Health, which is co-sponsoring the bill, said the training would be developed with experts at the California Department of Education and California Department of Public Health. Each group that opts into the training — students, staff and parents — will have tailored modules teaching them how to recognize warning signs, respond to them and access help.

“Schools are where warning signs are most often noticed early, since students spend so much of their daily lives there,” Zoller said. AB 2003 would also bypass a state law that requires a county department of education to receive a grant to fund suicide prevention training. Instead, educators, K-12 students and parents would receive training free and online.

For the first time since the pandemic, youth suicides declined last year, but still remain much higher than two decades ago. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for young people ages 10 to 25 in California, and between 2011 and 2021, the rate of youth dying by suicide increased by 60% nationwide. 

Berman said suicide prevention became a priority for him following a series of youth suicide clusters in his hometown of Palo Alto. Between 2009 and 2010, five students died by suicide at a railroad track next to Palo Alto High School, followed by four more between 2014 and 2015, and most recently, a 17-year-old girl who died by suicide in February. 

“It’s devastating to the whole school community that gets impacted,” Berman said. “We need to do everything we possibly can to support these young people.” 

In 2018, Berman secured $1.7 million in state funding for a pilot program that trained roughly 20,000 students and staff to recognize warning signs for suicide ideation and connect students to support services. The vast majority of participating staff and students reported feeling confident they could help someone at risk of suicide. About a quarter of all students and staff said they already had someone in mind who could use help.

Many schools in California have also rolled out suicide risk screeners as a tool to identify students who might be at risk of self-harm. Screeners can vary across schools, but common questions include:

• Have you wished you were dead or wished you could go to sleep and not wake up?
• Have you started to work out or worked out the details of how to kill yourself?
• Have you ever done anything, started to do anything, or prepared to do anything to end your life?

Most states use student surveys to measure aspects of suicide risk, but few collect information from screeners conducted in person and at school. Utah, for example, has local educational agencies collect suicide risk screening data, and Illinois became the first state to require universal mental health screenings in schools. If AB 2003 becomes law, California would be the first state with a repository of student population data and tools used to screen students for risk of suicide. 

The bill would only require reports from schools that choose to conduct screeners, Zoller said, and de-identify the data to protect student privacy. 

“This information may help the state understand screening capacity and implementation across schools, and could provide a foundation for future discussions about suicide prevention efforts,” she added.

For example, two schools in San Diego County found that the number of boys and Latino youth referred to suicide risk screenings increased in the first four years of collecting screener data. Schools also noticed a surge in students referred to screenings for eating disorders, and in response, expanded their network of local eating disorder therapists to personalize student support. 

The data could also shape new suicide prevention training to address disparities in youth suicide. In California, Indigenous and Black youth represent the highest rate of youth deaths by suicide and accounted for some of the highest increases in suicide between 2023 and 2024.

In high school, Huck said she remembered “feeling isolated, feeling alone and feeling like I couldn’t talk to anybody” as a Black girl at her school. She also felt unsafe to open up to predominantly white staff, and many were likely to call school police in response to mental health crises, she said. 

Zoller said the bill would be “culturally and linguistically competent” and aim to reduce disparities in suicide awareness, early identification and intervention. In Berman’s district, for example, schools could better serve the needs of LGBTQ youth, who are at high risk of suicide and represent the majority of Palo Alto’s most recent youth suicides, Berman said.

The bill is expected to pass with broad support and is headed into the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Monday. Though the bill has not faced any opposition, the state will have to convince staff, students and parents that the optional training is worth taking on another task.

Berman said he is confident that with the state’s awareness campaign that will follow — combined with a shared urgency to save young lives — communities will step up.

“They’ll have the confidence to help out,’’ he said, “but it also hopefully spurs conversations between parents and their kids about the reality of how hard it is for young people who grow up these days.”