Around a year ago, March 3, 2016, junior Chloe Amundson passed away from complications while recovering from pneumonia. Her death was the most recent tragedy suffered by the city.

Friends of Amundsen remember the school reacting to her death in an apathetic manner in comparison to other student deaths.

Senior Brin Feltl said she remembers the school being insensitive to the needs of Amundson’s close friends.

“The school didn’t really understand why I was absent so much,” Feltl said. “(The school) was like ‘we understand that you’re sad that she passed away but we’re still going to make you do all of these assignments and everything that you’ve missed’ even though I wasn’t mentally capable.”

Senior Sofia Roloff said she feels agitation at the school and how they handled Amundson’s passing.

“Honestly even though it happened a year ago it’s obviously still affecting us,” Roloff said. “At the time I wasn’t really thinking about what the school was doing, but now talking about it a year later I realized literally nothing happened. I feel so disappointed at their involvement in the process.”

Senior Hannah Selvig said in order to properly remember a student who has passed, a more active discussion is necessary.

“Talk about it more. Have each teacher talk to their class about what happened,” Selvig said. “Have a discussion about it instead of making it seemed like nothing happened. We got to have conversations with counselors but nobody else had any discussions.”

Other students also feel the school was unresponsive with their dealing of Amundson’s death.

Senior Benjamin Chappell said in regards to what he has experienced, he wishes for more respect for student deaths.

“I’ve only been here for one instance of it but to me there’s a fine line between the end of grief and moving on (compared to) completely not caring about it,” Chappell said.“From what I’ve seen at least we drift a little into not caring about it and not appreciating the weight of what a student death means and not respecting the student as a whole.”

Head of Counseling Department Barb Nelson said the main goal of the staff following student deaths is to assist those in need.

“We want to support the kids who need support around a student death no matter who they are and what circumstances it happens in,” Nelson said.“There are other circumstances that come into play like media influences and things like that with other situations we’ve had specifically in St. Louis Park.”

Nelson said the complexities of dealing with a student death make comparison impossible.

“When students are seeing things from the outside perspective they don’t have an idea of what administration or support staff has been told by families,” Nelson said.“There’s no way to compare individual deaths because each situation is unique and we have to treat it that way. We have to follow the family’s wishes as to how things are handled within the school, within the community and some of that is out of our hands.”

Principal Scott Meyers said the primary focus of the school’s attention following Amundson’s death was her family members and their wishes.

“I would say I think each response to loss in St. Louis Park has been handled in concert with family members. That’s kind of the priority: to touch base with family members,” Meyers said. “We do have a policy which guides our practices but each situation needs to be unique for many reasons. Thinking about this particular situation we worked closely with the family first and foremost.”

Meyers said the school worked with other districts in order to ensure all those affected were provided with sufficient aid.

“We worked with Minneapolis schools and Wayzata schools, and just overall support the school and staff within the bigger community,” Meyers said. “I know that the feedback we got from the family and Wayzata schools in particular, they thought things were handled very well. We also got some good feedback from not only the family but also other parents as well.”

Meyers said he believes a possibility as to the diminished reaction might be because she left the school for some time.

“Our focused remained to support the family and respect their wishes and I feel we did that. But I do understand that would be unfortunate because there are sometimes friends who need or want more help,” Meyers said. “My guess is whatever made it feel different is that whenever students leave our district for a while and come back the general knowledge of the student is different and results in maybe less of a recognition.”

Junior Stephanie Olson said while student deaths are terrible, the way the students handle tragedy allows for growth.

“(Loss) definitely makes us stronger as a community, but it’s still hard. I mean we shouldn’t take any death of a student lightly, (but) I think it brings us together more.”

Nelson said she notices the resilience of students along with their tendency to not only grieve but also grow together.

“It’s so impactful to the students and when (a death) happens they tend to grow closer together,” Nelson said. “When(Andrew Dudley) got killed on a bike the seniors that year really bonded together because it was one of their own. Those kinds of things struck me as to how kids just kind of responds to that.”

Nelson said she particularly feels humbled by how the community manages to persevere following unfortunate events.

“Thinking back on all the different tragedies the community of St. Louis Park itself is so amazing,” Nelson said.“We have this network of people out there so that when we’ve had student deaths the St. Louis Park clergy, and I mean as a whole, the Rabbis, and Priests and people coming to us saying ‘what can I do to help?’”