ELDRED - Teachers in the Eldred School District want students and their families to be cautious about the new Netflix series, "13 Reasons Why," which takes a graphic approach to teenage suicide.

Kim Gueren, senior guidance counselor at Eldred Middle School and High School, took her concerns about the show to district officials.

Eldred became one of many districts across the mid-Hudson - including Tuxedo, New Paltz, Goshen, Highland Falls, Washingtonville and Highland - to post advisories on their websites this week to make parents and guardians aware of the controversial series.

Almost all of the advisories suggest that they watch the series with their teenagers.

"The series is focused on a group of middle school students and it's produced by pop star Selena Gomez, so they (teenage viewers) connect with her, and they're going to say this is cool," said Gueren.

"If they're middle-school age and they're watching it with their parents, that's the best thing they could do with this kind of show. For that one kid that's watching it alone, that's the one kid we don't want to lose," she added.

The series is built around the suicide of a 17-year-old girl, who climbs into a bathtub with a razor and is shown slicing her skin.

That stomach-turning scene has come under fire for romanticizing suicide.

The heroine in the drama leaves behind 13 cassette tapes, each explaining a motive behind her death. The subjects include bullying, rape, and sexual assault.

The series has also been criticized for being far more graphic than the book it was based on that was written by Jay Asher and published in 2007.

The series' award-winning writer, Brian Yorkey, insists the show doesn't glamorize suicide.

"What we did was portray suicide, and we portrayed it as very ugly and very damaging," said Yorkey.

Netflix released all 13 hours of the series at once on March 31.

Eldred Superintendent Bob Dufour said several local mental health experts were consulted before the district posted the advisory on its website.

"We're not offering an opinion on the series one way or another, because we don't think it's our place to criticize," said Dufour.

"It's about providing parents with information and resources so they can form their own opinions and decide whether or not it's good for their children to watch," he added.