Orland SD 135 to bolster youth suicide prevention law
Orland School District 135 plans to develop a model curriculum that Illinois schools can use to implement a new youth suicide prevention law named for a Meadow Ridge School fifth grader who took her life two years ago.
AnnMarie’s Law, signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner in late August, requires the Illinois State Board of Education and local school boards to create policies ensuring that students receive age-appropriate lessons about youth suicide and prevention.
“A lot of times what happens when laws like this are signed is they kind of sit for a while,” District 135 Superintendent Janet Stutz said. “I have some friends in the social-emotional learning field, and we’ve been working on ensuring that this policy gets moving.”
AnnMarie’s parents, Mike and Sue Blaha, and her older sister, Melissa Lindberg, attended Monday night’s School Board meeting but did not speak.
“She was the center of her family’s universe,” family friend Kim Kent said of AnnMarie. “They never want another family to experience their nightmare of losing a child.”
AnnMarie’s June 2013 death is the subject of a lawsuit alleging that two classmates used a fake “catfish” persona on social media accounts to persuade her to commit suicide. The suit, filed in June in Cook County Circuit Court, accuses the unnamed classmates and their parents of negligence.
A busy meeting that included a vote on the district’s budget and the anticipated resignation of board President Joe La Margo ended with the adoption of the suicide prevention law.
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“It’s my honor that this will be my last vote as a school board member,” La Margo said.
He resigned his board seat after 21/2 years as president to focus on his new job as assistant village manager for Orland Park. He was the village’s deputy clerk and public information officer prior to his July promotion.
The six remaining board members will choose a replacement and elect the next president. Laura Berry, board vice president, didn’t rule out a move to the top spot.
“I will do what the board wants me to do,” she said.
La Margo, a father of four, still has children in District 135 and plans to remain involved as a board member of the district’s newly created Foundation for Technology and Learning, which received a $35,000 grant Monday from the School Board.
La Margo said raising money to buy the next wave of take-home computers that go to every District 135 student in the third through eighth grades will be part of the foundation’s mission in addition to supporting other community groups such as The Bridge teen center.
The board also voted unanimously and without debate Monday to approve the budget for this school year.
The plan maintains district financial reserves at 46.5 percent of annual spending, a downgrade from the 49.8 percent level that Finance Director Carl Forn projected two weeks ago but better than the 43 percent level he estimated in July. Board policy calls for maintaining reserves of 45 to 55 percent of spending.
Budget documents show spending exceeding revenue this school year by about $360,000 — down from $2.5 million in the July estimates. The revised budget projects $700,000 more in state funding, a more than $200,000 drop in spending on operations and maintenance and the elimination of $1.1 million in equipment spending that Forn deemed discretionary.
Patrick Guinane is a freelance reporter.