WBUR 5/14/13: Parents Of Slain Wayland Teen Call For Violence Prevention. The parents of a Wayland teen killed by a former boyfriend are urging lawmakers to require dating violence prevention as part of health and sexual education programs in public schools. Malcolm Astley, a retired principal, and Mary Dunne, a pre-kindergarten teacher, became emotional at times as they testified before the Legislature’s Education Committee. Dunne told the panel that while schools are focusing on academic performance and standardized tests, they have lost sight of teaching children about healthy relationships, empathy and caring. Astley told WBUR that education in high school about dealing with relationships is vital to ending domestic violence.
Boston Globe 5/14/13: Parents of slain Wayland teenager urge lawmakers to enact teen relationship and violence education in schools. The mother of Wayland murder victim Lauren Dunne Astley today called on legislators to mandate comprehensive dating violence education in Massachusetts schools, saying that if her daughter had only received the “pearl of wisdom” never to go alone to visit an ex-boyfriend, she might still be alive. “If only she had learned and internalized that singularly important lesson,” said Mary Dunne, who spoke with her former husband and Astley’s father, Malcolm Astley, to the Joint Committee on Education in the State House today. Behind them, their daughter beamed in a blown up version of her senior portrait. “That small pearl of wisdom should be ingrained in our children as deeply as buckling their seat belts and recycling their bottles and cans.”
