Imagine a group of 10 high school kids hanging out at a park or fast food restaurant. Two of them have seriously considered suicide in the past year. If it is a group of a dozen high school girls, three of them have considered suicide. In a group of 10 LBGTQ teens, half of them have thought of ending their own lives.

In 2021, 8.9 percent of high school students attempted suicide and 23.4 percent of LBGTQ students attempted to take their own lives. It is the second leading cause of death for Americans ages 10-34. Each year, 19,000 to 25,000 people in the U.S. take their own lives.

These statistics provided by the Centers for Disease Control are staggering. If the numbers represented any other cause of death, it would be a call to action.

Schools regularly conduct active shooter drills as a response to the increase in school shootings. For decades, schools have implemented DARE programs to warn students of the danger of drugs. Students are regularly instructed in the dangers of drinking and driving, as well as cyberbullying.

Yet as the CDC data informs us, there is no greater risks to our children than suicide.

Suicide — particularly among minors — is such a sensitive subject it is often shrouded in silence, a taboo subject.

Our society has always struggled to come to terms with it. Death by suicide evokes painful feelings — shame, guilt, confusion, even anger. It’s simply too hard to talk about and so we don’t.

It’s a paradox. Suicide thrives in silence. Those who take their own lives isolate themselves and those feelings of self-harm remain unchallenged until it is quite often too late.

Even so, suicide is a subject we find difficult to talk about. Even our policy at The Dispatch reflects as much. Except in very limited instances, we don’t acknowledge death by suicide in our reporting.

But the problem isn’t going away.

That’s why we are encouraged by a local private school’s effort to address the subject head on. On Thursday, Heritage Academy students in grades 7-12 met in small groups with Chris Brown, a psychiatric nurse practitioner from Allegro Clinic and Heritage counselor Amanda Shelton for a frank discussion about mental health, resources available to students when they are struggling with ideas of self-harm, the importance of being able to talk about their feelings and being attuned to the feelings of other students when the sense something may be wrong.

We can’t remain quiet on teen suicide.

Breaking the barriers of shame and silence is often the key to survival and healing.

When those barriers remain, the statistics cited above reveal what can happen.

We encourage all schools to examine how they are addressing the mental health needs of their students.

It’s possibly the most important lesson they can teach.

The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.