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In light of the earlier suicides, Amber's and Alicia's deaths hit San Pedro High particularly hard. Cyndy Lum, a psychiatric social worker who was part of the crisis-intervention team, describes the scene the first few days after the suicides hit the 6 o'clock news as "a large-scale psychiatric disaster." Students clustered in hallways weeping; classes sat numb and silent; teachers broke down at an after-school meeting. Says math teacher Crosby: "It was the roughest teaching day I've ever had." Because teenagers--impulsive and susceptible to fashion in all things--are considered particularly vulnerable to copycat behavior when it comes to suicide, counselors made a point of talking with students who had been in each of Amber's and Alicia's classes. Any attempts to memorialize the girls were discouraged; candles and flowers that appeared at the spot where Amber and Alicia ate lunch every day were removed and sent home to the families.
As the crisis workers feared, there were indeed students who were, as Rubin describes it, "on the edge." A few were hospitalized for severe depression, and counselors are still following up with others they have identified as suicide risks. "For a child who isn't thinking clearly, they see this as a way of getting the recognition they don't have in life," says Rubin. "And for many kids death is not real--it's a fantasy concept--so you can say, 'Oh, I'll kill myself and get my picture in the paper.' They don't see that death is final."
Blame is being cast back and forth. Marty Hernandez says he does not understand why the school did not get Amber into impact counseling. San Pedro officials, meanwhile, insist that they are doing all they can, what with budget cuts not only at the school level but in county mental-health services as well. The one school psychologist for 3,100 pupils works "almost full time," according to principal Stephen Walters, but focuses on special-education students. San Pedro's impact counselors are simply dedicated teachers with a little extra training that consists of three to seven days of workshops and lectures, and the program depends on a federal grant that may not survive the budget ax. And there are only two suicide-prevention workers serving the 649,000 students in the Los Angeles school system--which is actually two more than many school districts in the country have.
What is indisputable is that as the 20th century comes to a close, to the three Rs must be added a battery of services, counseling and all-around student care. "This is the last line of defense, high schools," says Mike Booth, the head of San Pedro High's health department. "Fifty percent of my class is from single parents. But society doesn't give us the means to take care of them. We have seven minutes between each period. We're overwhelmed, overwhelmed by family problems that used to get taken care of at home. We're trained, but we're not doctors. We're at a loss." Suicide experts stress that families must be unafraid to seek professional help, and that teachers must take all signs of depression seriously.