Officials in the Okeechobee County School District are investigating three suicides that occurred among their staff within the past few months.
“We’re a small community where everybody knows everybody,” PCSD Assistant Superintendent Dylan Tedders said.
“We know our people and our people know us. Most of them probably have our cell phone numbers.”
Tedders, who worked as a local high school principal, said that in October, the first suicide of a longtime district director was “a shock to the community.”
Less than a month after that, a school counselor took their own life: “When you look at it just on paper you say, OK what is going on.”
A math teacher put an end to his life a week and a half later. He was respected by all who knew him.
“I hadn’t experienced anything like this happening before and this is my 25th year in the district,” Tedders said. “It’s tough, it’s tough.”
