Anyone have a teen on antipressants?

My 14 yr. old (freshman) is currently in counseling for what I think is mild depression, confidence issues and emotional stress. She lost her dad 3 years ago, but has always been very hard on herself and very sensitive. We are not to the point where she is on meds yet, but things seem to be escalating since school started. I am worried that it will come to that. I'm scared because I've heard lots of bad side effects and things may get worse until we find the right drug for her. For those of you that are dealing with this, how is it going? Do you communicate with their teachers about any of it so they are aware? Do you do special things to help them reduce their stess levels? I was thinking about picking her up from school because how this school does their end of day stuff is really chaotic. Everyone brings their backpack and stuff to last hour and they hop on these shuttle busses that take them to the 10-12th grade building where they get on their real bus. They have 4 minutes to catch the shuttle bus. I thought that might help her out. I know kids have to deal with stuff on their own, but I don't feel like she's at a place where she can do that very well now. I stay at home, so it's not really a problem to do.