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POLICY 1600: MEMORIALS FOR DECEASED STUDENTS OR STAFF

POLICY 1600: MEMORIALS FOR DECEASED STUDENTS OR STAFF

Revised: March 2025

I. PURPOSE

The purpose of this policy is to provide guidance on the criteria and the approval process for memorials honoring Westonka students or staff.  

The School District understands that the loss of a member of our school community deeply impacts students, staff, and families. Following the loss of a Westonka student or staff member, the primary focus will be on supporting those affected and helping to connect them with the appropriate school and community resources.

In the immediate aftermath of a crisis or death, memorials may be suggested without fully considering their potential impact on students, staff, families, and the community. This policy provides District parameters to help guide decisions making regarding school related memorials.

II. DEFINITION

Memorials: Objects or activities to remember a deceased person or an event that resulted in death.

Building Crisis Intervention Team: A designated group of staff members, within each school building, who plan and implement mental health support for grief recovery.

Crisis: Any natural disaster or unexpected event that negatively affects a student, a staff member or a significant group of the school population and usually involves serious emotional, psychological and/or physical injury or death.

Impact: The magnitude of the potential loss or seriousness of the crisis.

District Crisis Intervention Team: A designated group of staff members who develop and execute district-wide procedures for the handling of mental health needs during the recovery phase of a crisis situation needing grief support.

III. GENERAL STATEMENT OF POLICY

  1. Temporary memorial activities that take place at school must be approved by the building principal and coordinated through the Building Crisis Intervention Team (BCIT). The BCIT will assist families and students in selecting memorial activities that are appropriate for school and will assist students in healthy bereavement.
  2. In recognition that schools are designed primarily to support learning, school sites should not serve as the main venue for the memorializing of students or staff.
  3. Temporary school memorials, as approved by the school principal, may be displayed for two weeks and will then be given to the family. Allowable temporary memorials are flower arrangements, banners, pictures, notes, and locker and student desk displays. Any plans to sell memorial items must receive prior approval from the administration. Memorial symbols displayed by individual students or staff on school grounds will be limited in duration to one month and must have prior approval from the school principal.
  4. Permanent memorials for deceased students and staff are limited to endowments, scholarships, plantings and books or items with educational significance. Scholarship and endowment memorials may be established either as one-time or perpetual awards, with a description of the purpose of the endowment or scholarship. The school district reserves the right to accept or decline permanent memorials.
  5. Dedications in the school yearbook are subject to the approval of the Building Crisis Intervention Team.
  6. With the approval of the Superintendent, plantings may be made in a designated location on the perimeter of the school grounds. Planting memorials must not require additional district resources to maintain. Permanent memorials may not include the retirement, alteration, or discontinued use of school property.
  7. Memorials following a death from suicide must not glamorize, romanticize, or stigmatize the act of suicide.
  8. School district facilities will not be used for memorial services or funerals. Exceptions may be made for rental of school facilities by private parties with the approval of the superintendent. In addition, the superintendent, in consultation with the District Crisis Intervention Team, has the discretion to approve schoolwide memorial activities in certain extenuating circumstances, such as when a crisis event or death of a student or staff member has a significant impact on a majority of students, staff, and community.
  9. School staff will monitor anniversary dates and may provide small group or individual counseling and/or other supportive activities to friends of the deceased in order to assist with grief recovery. School-wide recognition of anniversary dates will not occur.
  10. Memorials established prior to the initial adoption of this policy are not affected by this policy. 

Adopted: June 9, 2008