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Teacher Jillian Jacobson Commits Suicide By Hanging In Classroom — Students Discover Body

By Zachary Volkert
Published on: 08:34 PST, Mar 2, 2015

Psychologists say that the things that happen to us when we are young stay with us forever. Sadly, this is something that’s probably going to be the case for a group of teenage students who arrived to their first period class Monday morning to find that their teacher, Jillian Jacobson, had committed suicide by hanging herself in their classroom at Placentia, California high school.

Students arrived at their classroom ready to begin the day when they found that Jillian’s door was locked. Unable to locate their teacher, they went to find another authority figure to open the door. As students filed in, they discovered that their teacher was dead inside the classroom, according to local affiliate station ABC 7.

Although emergency medical services were immediately contacted, by the time they were able to reach El Dorado High School at 8:34 a.m., Jillian was already in full cardiac arrest. The Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District released a statement detailing the situation at the school regarding Jacobson’s death.

“Paramedics performed life-saving measures, however, after several minutes, [Jillian] was declared deceased at the scene.”

Although some sources originally reported that only the students who found their hanging teacher had been sent home, a later update stated that school had been canceled across campus for the entire day because of Jacobson’s suicide. Grief counselors are expected to be on scene when they return to campus, according to OC Weekly.

Students who spoke with local media expressed shock at the event. Jillian was a photography teacher who was well-liked by students, securing a 100 percent pass rate for her AP Photography Portfolio exam, according to Heavy.com. Leo Amaya, 16, told The OC Register that he had previously taken Jacobson’s class and was floored by the news of her suicide.

“If you take into account how everyone reacted by crying and being upset, you’ll see how everyone was completely surprised that it was her. She gave no signs of being depressed or sad.”

Even though there have been other recent teacher suicides, the fact that Jillian Jacobson hung herself in her classroom for her students to find makes it pretty grim. Although you could argue that another teacher, Mark Lampman, who committed suicide last year in Texas is a more disturbing picture. Mark shot himself in a field after allegations surfaced that he had sexual relations with an underage student. That teacher suicide event took place at Permian High School, the school on which the wildly popular Friday Night Lights book and series is based as previously reported by the Inquisitr.

[Images via El Dorado High School and David Foggo/Flickr]

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