A HIGH school sophomore in Maine who committed suicide after classes went virtual due to the pandemic left a note stating he felt “locked in this house.”
Spencer Smith, 16, who attended Brunswick High School, played football and worked two jobs, died on Friday.
In his note, Smith detailed his struggles with isolation from school and his friends, his father Jay Smith told NBC News on Tuesday.
“We knew he was upset because he was no longer able to participate in his school activities, football. We never guessed it was this bad,” Smith said in a phone interview.
“Looking back now we could see little things that we should have caught but we didn’t realize his mental health was deteriorating as bad.”
The teenager had spent the summer working out and training to play as a lineman on his school’s football team.
However, Spencer Smith “gave up on it” when the sport was switched to flag football due to Covid-19, his father said.
“It wasn’t the same type of practice because they had to social distance,” Jay Smith said.
“He didn’t like that part of it.”
Spencer Smith stopped exercising and took more naps and his grades also dropped as courses became remote.
He attended classes in-person once a week but later asked his parents if he could stay home because he was not able to interact with his friends.
“The social distance ain’t working for the kids, I mean, the kids are having it hard,” Jay Smith told WMTW over the weekend.
A day after the teenager took his life, his mother Angela Smith wrote on Facebook that he was “trapped in the house” due to remote learning.
“I just lost a son because he couldn’t be with his friends,” she wrote.
“He felt like he lost his friends and had a hard time with his school work.”
She added that “he felt he had no future,” “hated what society was becoming,” and “took the easy way out.”
In a statement on Friday, Brunswick School Department’s superintendent of schools Phillip Potenziano said “suicide should denote be an option.”
“It’s really important if you or your child is not feeling well in any way to reach out for help,” he stated.
Schools across the US this fall have gone fully or partially remote as coronavirus cases surge.
Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that mental health issues among young adults have grown amid the pandemic.
