<p>Yale student leaves note, jumps from the Empire State Building,(this thread was started two days ago)</p>
<p>The entire Notre Dame community is heartbroken by this tragic event. My own family extends their condolences to the James’ family and prays for the repose of Mathew’s soul.</p>
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<p>TRAGIC. He was SEVENTEEN. Who lets a group of 17-18 year-olds travel from Cincinnati to party and drink for spring break. Heck, he wasn’t even in college yet. It is reported that there were 40 high school students on the trip, with half a dozen parents. So many bad decisions here.</p>
<p>I would never let my 17 year old travel to a hotel for spring break without me…but evidently some people do. Most of the time nothing happens, but the potential for tragedy is just so great.</p>
<p>Kids will be kids. Spring break is a rite of passage, much like getting a driver’s license and going off to college for the first time. No sense blaming the parents here-these things, like tragic car accidents, tend to happen. Hopefully his family will be able to recover from this, but I’m not sure how.</p>
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<p>Wow. Such a total disconnect from what I believe in.<br>
While I know nothing about the circumstances with the student in question, the idea that getting drunk and falling from hotel balconies to your death is a “rite of passage” is repugnant to me and most of the parents here.<br>
“Kids will be kids” is so, so, so, not a reason for kids to die.</p>
<p>While I know nothing about the student involved, I do know parents who pay for these trips, and then worry and complain.
Be The Grown-Up! Don’t let your child get into a dangerous situation!</p>
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<p>I said Spring Break is a rite of passage, not falling to your death at 17. I’d wager that more kids are killed driving to and from school each year than on even the wildest of spring break trips. These things happen, but 99% of the time kids go to and come back from Spring Break in one piece.</p>
<p>prayers and condolences to all who are connected to the young man.</p>
<p>Holy cow…drunk and belligerent on a high school trip?! I can’t blame the parents but that must be the worst group of chaperones on the planet! My kids’ HS trips started with full luggage searches for contraband, their rooms were checked daily, and they were taped into their room with a chaperone posted in the hall all night. There were constant check-ins required throughout the day even though they had very little free time and were in somewhat restricted areas with no access to alcohol. In mandatory parent/student meetings ahead of time and it was made very clear to the kids that they would ALL be held responsible for any infractions that occurred in their rooms, and punishments would START with calls to parents to come escort the ungrateful, unworthy offenders home! They’ve done this trip for years without incident and the strict rules and supervision are the only thing that persuaded me to allow my kids to participate. Amazingly, the kids always have a great time and it’s a sold out event every year.</p>
<p>"Cuse, even the loss of one kid on such a trip is not worth it. I can’t imagine the regret and sorrow his family and friends feel over this senseless tragedy.</p>
<p>I would guess that while falling from the balcony is certainly unusual, that it is well over 1 in a hundred high school students on spring break that has a really significant problem: alcohol poisoning, date rape, falls of various kids (more often resulting in broken bones), drownings, drug overdoses, … You have no idea of the kind of scene you see at a spring break area hospital ER. </p>
<p>D really wanted to go on a spring break expedition, but we just flat out said no. Turns out that all her friends’ parents did too. I read this incredibly sad story and I know just why we said no. (And I know that terrible things can happen at home, but there is something to be said for your own town and neighborhood providing some constraints.)</p>
<p>Spring break trips without family are NOT a “rite of passage” for many, then and now. Tragedies like this are one reason- especially since “kids are kids” and lack judgement, plus are prone to peer pressure for drinking and other dangers. Not to be equated with getting a driver’s license of going away to college.</p>
<p>[Spring</a> Breaker Death-Update](<a href=“http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/89846397.html]Spring”>http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/89846397.html)</p>
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<p>And I hope they throw the book at that person or persons.</p>
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<p>Of course it isn’t worth it-nothing is. That said, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now if the kid was in a room on the first or second floor or went out to eat or went for a stroll on the beach instead of hanging out in the balcony. Tens of thousands of kids each year go away on unsupervised spring break trips, and tens of thousands of kids each year come home with nothing more than a headache and an empty wallet. Could things have been done better in this case? Probably, but hindsight is 20/20. Should be be ostracizing the kid’s family for allowing him to participate in something that countless other teens do each year without incident? No way.</p>
<p>LasMa, thanks for the update. What a tragic start to spring break.</p>
<p>Sorry Cuse. We’ll have to agree to disagree. It’s tragic enough when it’s college students over 21, who have hopefully developed some sense of their own tolerance for alcohol-and the backbone to say ‘enough’-back at the dorm. For high school students, this is completely unacceptable. The chaperones were irreponsible and so were the parents who let this young man head off without a clear understanding of what the boundaries were.</p>
<p>And as others pointed out-this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Spring Break ‘rite of passage’ is usually accomplied by full emergency rooms and the consequences of bad judgement.</p>
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I would venture a guess that there are not tens of thousands of 17 yo HIGH SCHOOL students doing this. Since when did this become a high school rite of passage?</p>
<p>We said “no” to a senior spring road trip for 18 year old S2 this year. He’s not thrilled with us. But…my heart just aches for this family.</p>
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<p>I’m a little surprised that hs students taking spring break trips is so unfamiliar to so many of you. It was, indeed, a common thing when I was in high school – high schoolers taking trips to either Florida for sun and fun or to Colorado for skiing, with rather minimal chaperoning. Not sure I’d let my kids do it, but it hardly seems like a new thing to me.</p>