IKEDA, Osaka Pref. — Three days after the fatal stabbing of eight schoolchildren at Osaka Kyoiku University Ikeda Elementary School, teachers began efforts Monday to prepare students to return to classes by first visiting them at home with mental health care counselors.
Sixteen teacher-counselor pairs were dispatched to see schoolchildren at home on Monday afternoon in order to assess the children's condition after experiencing Friday's killings and to determine what is necessary to deal with the children's posttraumatic stress from the incident, school principal Yoshio Yamane said.
Yamane told reporters that the teachers plan to visit all of the school's roughly 680 students at home by Wednesday so that the teachers, consulting with the mental health care experts, can determine what is necessary to resume classes.