Milan community comes together to grieve and ask questions following student's suicide

Girbach said the number of deaths this year has been extremely unusual, but Milan Area Schools has been putting its crisis response plans into action. He said counselors and other school officials met with students continuously Monday, and will do so for the rest of this week. Students who would like additional counseling will be offered weekly sessions.

“It’s not usual, but it’s important to know that we’re prepared for it and we’ve handled it and we’re there for our students,” he said.

Members of the media were asked not to attend the community meeting but met with Girbach for about 30 minutes prior to the meeting.

Girbach said Harrison’s death has not officially been ruled a suicide by the medical examiner, but Harrison’s father had confirmed — and asked Girbach to make known — that it was a suicide.

The other two students who have died during the school year were community education student Brian Copaciu, a high school senior whose death in October was ruled a suicide, and high school junior William Bowers, whose December death is still under investigation. Information the school district has received points to Bower's death being accidental, officials said.

The district also held a community meeting after Copaciu's death.

Girbach said there doesn't seem to be a connection between the students’ deaths. The students were in different social circles, and the details surrounding the deaths were different, he said. Girbach said the deaths had very little to do with the school environment, but he would not elaborate.

The parking lots at Milan High School were full Monday night prior to the 7 p.m. meeting as members of the community filed into the high school theater. 

Jim and Vickey Priest attended the meeting as concerned parents of high school children.

“For the most part, our concern is, ‘Is there something going on?’” Jim Priest said. “It’s a bigger picture thing.”

The Priests send their children to the Milan school district through schools of choice because they live outside the district. Vickey Priest said she was concerned about the prospect of bullying being a problem at the school — something Girbach said played no role in the deaths of any of the three students to his knowledge.

“With the bullying that’s happening in the national news, we want to make sure it’s not something that’s happening here,” she said.

Girbach said many of the phone calls he received throughout the day stemmed from misinformation spread through social networks and rumors among students. He said that was one of the reasons the district called the meeting.

“Students are grasping to understand,” he said, adding that rumors of drugs being involved in any of the deaths were baseless. “None of them mean to be detrimental, and they’re grasping for an understanding and they want to build a reality that would help them heal.”

One of the first groups the district brought together Monday morning was the Milan High School basketball program; Harrison played on the varsity basketball team. Harrison’s younger brother also plays basketball for the school.

Girbach said the decision to cancel Tuesday’s games against Saline High School was reached after consulting the teams and seeing whether they wanted to play. He said canceling the game was the best decision until Harrison’s family was able to make funeral arrangements.

“Kids can go either way,” he said. “They may have felt it would have been an honor to play in his name or they may have felt they just weren’t ready.”

He said it's unlikely any more games will be canceled, simply to give the team members a sense of normalcy. He said that's one of the most important things for all of the school’s approximately 1,000 students to reclaim.

Girbach praised the Milan community for coming together during a time of crisis. He said he received phone calls from about 10 local pastors by about 9 a.m. Monday, offering their support. The district also called in the Traumatic Events Response Network of Washtenaw County.

Although the community is grieving, he said it's inspiring to see Milan come together.

“I guess I don’t know what it would be like to not have that support because that’s just what Milan does when we have a crisis, we pull together,” he said.

Kyle Feldscher covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com.