Parents of Slain Wayland Teen Urge Violence Prevention Education

Malcolm Astley and Mary Dunne took another step Tuesday in their efforts to prevent what happened to their daughter from happening to anyone else.

Dunne and Astley testified during a legislative hearing of the Joint Committee on Education Tuesday, asking lawmakers to pass bills designed to bring violence prevention classes and healthy relationship education to all Massachusetts schools.

Their own daughter, Lauren Dunne Astley, was murdered by her Wayland High School classmate and former boyfriend in July 2011. Nathaniel Fujita is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the crime

"We need to keep track of our priorities, and relationships are the beginning and end of what people are about," Malcolm Astley testified, according to a New England Cable News video.

Dunne agreed, testifying that "Schools need to keep pace by teaching the fourth R: Relationships."

According to My Fox Boston, the proposed bills do not outline a specific curriculum, nor do they allocate funding.

Dr. Emily Rothman of the Boston University School of Public Health was also scheduled to testify. She explained to the legislative panel that Massachusetts schools are currently not provided with any resources to conduct the kind of relationship education and violence prevention awareness that is needed.

"We as a Commonwealth are doing virtually nothing," Rothman testified, according to a My Fox Boston. "We have no state funding for dating violence prevention in schools. That is deplorable."

State Rep. Tom Conroy (D-Wayland) told NECN that the lack of resources could prove a significant hurdle to the legislative efforts.

"The implementation and the monitoring and the oversight on a school district by school distrcit basis is very, very difficult given the limited resources that we here in the legislature allocate towards the Department of Education," Conroy told NECN.

On a local level, Astley and Dunne have established the Lauren Dunne Astley Memorial Fund with a mission of "to promote dynamic educational programs, particularly those in the areas of the development of healthy teen relationships."