In a new legislative measure, as of July 2019, all public and private California schools are required to have the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the Crisis Text Line on the back of student ID cards from grades 7-12.

This new requirement was passed into California law through Senate Bill 972, initiated by Sen. Anthony Portantino in 2018. 

“I hope that as a community we are more open to hav[ing] a dialogue about mental health and suicide to help prevent these horrific tragedies,” Sen. Portantino said in an interview with the Advocate. “If one life can be saved through this bill then all of our efforts will have been worth it.”

This new addition was also met with some controversy from students at Oak Park High School.

Senior Connor Jamison described it as, “a contrived and forced attempt to create a way for students to reach out, but if it works even a single time it is infinitely valuable.”

However, according to senior Julianne Dunn, there is a positive benefit of having the suicide hotline number on students’ school IDs.

“I think it has a more positive impact than a negative impact because it reminds kids that they have that option, and that they have somewhere to turn if they feel that they have nowhere else to go,” Dunn said.

Assistant Principal Natalie Smith hopes that this new measure will assist students at home who need help when they are not able to access school resources such as Safe School Ambassadors, Advanced Peer Counseling and the counseling staff at OPHS.

“I’m pleased that the state passed that law. I think we need to give students that information when they are going through tough times. We have a ton [of resources] on campus: Safe School Ambassadors, Advanced Peer Counseling, our fantastic counseling staff, but we are on campus, we are not at home. This is just one way, when you do go home, to have another place to go if you need help,” Smith said.