HPISD Should Do More to Support Students, Speakers Say
Speakers at the Feb. 18 Highland Park ISD Board of Trustees meeting asked the district to improve its mental-health support for students and do more to combat bullying.
Noemi Tsai, a former student at Highland Park High School, said she has struggled with depression for several years. Nationally, she said, more than 20% of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 had at least one major depressive episode in 2021. But only 40% of these students received help.
She said that she once drew a picture on a quiz while in class to show how helpless she was feeling, but no one noticed, followed up, or asked how they could help.
“I share this story in hopes that things can change,” Tsai said. “And that students like me can get help before it’s too late.”
She suggested that the mental-health wellness checkup for ninth graders be expanded to include students in seventh to 12th grade, and that teachers receive additional training. She also proposed the district partner with the National Alliance on Mental Illness and use its Ending the Silence program, a “powerful tool for raising awareness, improving understanding, and reducing stigma.”
Tsai has also created bracelets that say “Your Story Isn’t Over Yet” to help raise awareness.
“I hope by talking more openly and acknowledging that it’s OK to not be OK, that we can help reduce stigma and better support all students,” she said.
Jennifer Kinder told the board that her 13-year-old daughter was bullied while a student at Highland Park Middle School, and that adults had let her down and failed to adequately discipline the offenders.
Kinder said her daughter received a six-minute TikTok video in which three girls at Highland Park Middle School made “humiliating and degrading comments” about her while at a sleepover.
“The six-minute TikTok is disgusting and humiliating,” she said. “It was posted for 20 hours before I saw it, 147 children had seen it, many of which are my daughter’s friends from Highland Park Middle School.”
Kinder called her daughter’s reaction “heartbreaking” and said she had gone “to a very dark place.” Kinder said phone calls were also made to friends at her daughter’s new school after she left the district because of the bullying.
Although her daughter reported the bullying to HPMS and the Highland Park Police Department, Kinder said that adults have let her down.
“Parents allow their children to treat others this way, and a school district that says there isn’t enough proof that it affected her in the classroom,” she told the board. “I’m asking you what you’re willing to do about this situation.”
