ABSTRACT
The National Association of Secondary School Principals has established a system for informing the school community of a death [31 (this protocol has been adopted by schools throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe; it can provide a good starting point for teachers and administrators who wish to have guidelines in place for dealing with such an event). The news will be painful no matter what is done; however, prior planning for such an event can help keep that pain to a minimum by avoiding mistakes-usually well-intentioned-that could make the reaction worse. This is important for children of all ages. A detailed discussion of the teacher’s role in helping elementary school students to cope with the death of a classmate appeared in Instructor magazine [41 (this article discusses the role of the elementary school teacher in helping a child to understand death and grief), and the author, Dr. Janice Cohn, has worked as a consultant for the New York City Board of Education helping New York elementary schools which have experienced the death of a student.
