By Paul Maryniak | Ahwatukee Foothills News
A Mountain Pointe High teacher and several other mothers whose sons took their lives left a State House committee in tears last week as it unanimously approved Ahwatukee Sen. Sean Bowie’s suicide prevention training bill.
The bill requires that starting next fall, all school personnel who deal with students in sixth through 12th grade must undergo training every three years in proven techniques for recognizing suicidal children and teens and knowing what to do to help them.
“There really is a crisis when it comes to our young people and teen suicide, particularly in the East Valley,” Bowie told the committee before Chandler Republican state Rep. Jeff Weninger appeared to voice his support for the legislation.
“I have never testified on another person’s bill in a committee that wasn’t mine,” said Weninger, entering his fifth year as a lawmaker. “To me, this is that important through the whole state to get this done.”
The committee’s approval moves the bill one step closer to law. Today, the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider it, and then it goes for a standard review before the Rules Committee before it reaches the House floor for a final vote.
Mountain Pointe English teacher Lori Warnock – whose only child Mitch took his life as a student at Corona del Sol High School two years and five months ago and for whom the bill is named – was one of several mothers who told the committee in gut-wrenching detail why training was so vital.
