Garrett school officials meet with parents to discuss suicide pact

School officials in Garrett met with parents Monday night to talk about rumors surrounding a suicide pact at the middle school.

It was a lively meeting with many parents expressing concern. School officials say their investigations show there isn't a pact. However, some parents and students still say otherwise.

Superintendent Dennis Stockdale said the district's putting together a suicide prevention program to help raise awareness.

Stockdale said he's not sure how many suicide attempts there have been, but that only one happened during the school day. However, parents and students said there have been three with two of them using prescription pills.

Some parents were upset at the way the school handled the situation saying they wish they had found out sooner.

"It's not just the school's fault," said Tracey Klotz, who has an 8th grader at Garrett Middle School. "It's parents too, but this school needs to stop sweeping things under the rug."

However, school officials said they did not contact all parents immediately because they did not have enough evidence suggesting there was a pact and didn't want to create a bigger problem.

"We called the parents that had a direct involvement that we had any information," said Stockdale. "We brought those students and parents in and talked with them."

There were quite a few parents who said they thought the school handled the situation well. They said if it was their son or daughter, they wouldn't want the private issue becoming a community matter either.

"I think it starts at home," said a parent who didn't want to be named. "As a parent you're responsible to deal with these situations at home. I do not want the school system to guide my child through something like this. I want to guide my child through something like this."

Stockdale also asked anyone with more information about the alleged pact to come forward because investigators have exhausted all of their leads.