News Channel 5 reported this morning that students at Cleveland Public High Schools are among the most likely to attempt suicide in the country.

A Center for Disease Control (CDC) report found that 20 percent of high school students enrolled at CMSD tried to kill themselves in 2015. This was the highest rate of attempted suicide among the 19 urban school districts the CDC surveyed.

According to school officials, poverty is closely linked to this statistic. More than 70 percent of CMSD students live below the poverty line and nearly 4,000 of them are homeless. The stressors of life are so well-known to CMSD administrators that the numbers didn’t even surprise them.

They’ve been taking steps to mitigate the problem, chief among them a “Humanware” program — “hardware for the student’s soul” — that includes counseling, intervention, and a rapid response team in the event of a suicide attempt.

CMSD has nearly 200 school psychologists, nurses and counselors who serve as first responders.

This article appears in Feb 22-28, 2017.

Sam Allard is a former senior writer at Scene.

8 replies on “Twenty Percent of Cleveland Public High School Students Attempted Suicide in 2015”

  1. Frank Jackson is too busy with RTA buses to mumble out a comment…..and Eric Gordon could probably care less.

  3. This is an alarming statistic. But please get the facts straight. This is among high school students, not all CMSD students.

    Again, a frightening statistic and an indicator of tough living conditions.

  5. That is so sad. High school sucked – can’t even imagine how impossible it would have been also being homeless. I Feel for these kids.

  6. False. There would have been 12,000 hospitalizations. The NIH would have 200 specialists here full time. Just an impossible and irresponsible report.

    Was this based on a student survey? Did anyone take those seriously in high school?

  7. False? OK Shawn, please demonstrate how a CDC-administered study, using medical and statistical professionals to design and analyze the results, is “False.”

    Take 5 minutes and educate yourself on the significant amount of effort that goes into designing and administering these studies. The CDC makes it very easy; I found this link in about a minute:

    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/rr/rr6201.pdf

    Is there reason to doubt answers given by the kids surveyed? Sure. That’s why they spend years refining the methods and use troves of data to test the validity of the responses. They know that the source is fickle, and they know how to get the best information out of it.

    Sorry man, the quick and spurrious rejection of real, scientifically established data is a real problem in today’s society.

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