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Two Tragic Years at L.A.’s Most Elite Private School
The Hollywood ReporterStory by Lexy Perez
scrn logline
Shocking suicides at elite Hollywood-adjacent school Harvard-Westlake leave community reeling, sparking urgent questions about mental health crisis among high-pressure students.
beat sheet
- Four student suicides in two years, including a 15-year-old sophomore, an 18-year-old senior, and the father of one of the students, leaving the school grappling with a devastating ripple effect and the need for intensive postvention efforts.
- Despite the school's attempts to support students, including relaxing grading policies and bringing in puppies, the pressure-cooker environment of competition, perfectionism, and college admissions stress is seen as a key factor behind the tragedies, with one alumnus describing the 'bizarre system' of student-led counseling.
call sheet
Sheila Siegel, Jim Burns, Jacques Steinberg, Nicole LaPorte, Charlie Munger, Jane Eisner, Anthony Pritzker, Spencer Rascoff, Bobby Kotick, Beth Slattery, Rick Commons, Christine Yu Moutier, Ned Johnson, Helen Hsu, Julie Cerel, Scott Poland, Steve Bing, Peter Bing, Sharon Brous, Jon Wimbish, Katie Hurley, Susan Turner Jones, Harvard-Westlake School, Harvard School, Westlake School for Girls, Berkshire Hathaway, Activision Blizzard, Major League Baseball, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Children's Hospital Association, American Medical Association, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, University of Kentucky, Nova Southeastern University, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Groton School, IKAR, Jed Foundation