Date: Fri 18-Aug-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: AMYD

Quick Words:

substance-abuse-policy-school

Full Text:

School Board Toughens Substance Abuse Policy

B Y A MY D'O RIO

When students gets caught with drugs, they get suspended and, now, banned from

extracurricular activities.

School officials added to the district's substance abuse policy earlier this

month hoping the ban would deter students from doing drugs. Letters about the

policy change are being sent to families of middle and high school students.

"What you need is a balance of offering kids help and setting consequences,

and we offer our kids a lot of help," said Judy Blanchard, chairman of the

Substance Abuse Task Force.

The task force decided to add to the consequences, or punishments.

For the first violation of the substance abuse policy, students are suspended

for a minimum of three days and banned from extracurricular activities for 21

calendar days.

If there is another offense, students are suspended for at least five days and

banned from extracurricular activities for 45 calendar days.

For the third offense, the policy remains the same: students are recommended

for expulsion.

Newtown's Substance Abuse Task Force requested the change, and received

backing from administrators and school board, which unanimously approved it on

August 8.

"I think the board felt it was not going to harm any students, and it might

help some," said Herbert Rosenthal, the school board chairman.

Ms Blanchard said parents became interested in the policy about two years ago

and determined it "did not go far enough."

Committees were formed, research conducted and members finally latched onto a

Joel Barlow High School policy banning students from extracurricular

activities for drug-use offenses.

The Newtown policy is slightly different from Joel Barlow's, which lets

administrators decide the length of the ban as long as it does not exceed 45

days for first-time offenders and 90-days for second-time offenders.

Mrs Blanchard said the Newtown committee did not want the length of bans to be

negotiable so it set fixed lengths.Since there was no leeway, she said the

committee decided 45 days for the first offense, and 90 for the second, was "a

little steep."

"You don't want to take too much away. Kids in trouble need to be involved in

school," she said.

Nancy Pugliese, the state's drug-free schools coordinator, agreed.

She said there are many students who stay in school solely because they want

to pursue a particular extracurricular interest. Taking that away is risky.

She said when schools set consequences for substance abuse offenses, there is

always the risk of it backfiring with some students.

The student may drop-out or use drugs more often as a result of being banned

from an activity that is meaningful to them.

On the other hand, she said the football star may refrain from doing drugs on

the weekend because he does not want to miss part of the football season.

"I think it is a balancing act," she said.

Ms Pugliese said she is glad Newtown is not just applying the policy to

sports, but all extracurricular activities. Often, these rules are applied

just to athletic teams, but they really should be broader, she said.

Bob Zito, Newtown High School's athletic director, agreed.

The coaches support the new changes, he said, noting some coaches have imposed

much tougher punishments on their athletes for drug use. Some coaches, he

said, have thrown students off teams permanently.

As for the possibility of losing athletes for long stretches, Mr Zito said,

"There is a bigger picture than the game."