Newtown Prevention Council Conducts Last Meeting Until Fall

By Eliza Hallabeck

In celebration of her last 50 minutes of being a co-chair for the Newtown Prevention Council, Beth Agen shared cupcakes from Mocha Coffeehouse with fellow council members on Thursday, May 20.

Member Anna Wiedemann read the list of nominations, which had Newtown Chief of Police Michael Kehoe and Newtown Public Schools District Heath Advisor Judy Blanchard slated for co-chairs, Newtown’s Health District Director Donna Culbert for vice chair, Roseanne Loring returning as secretary, and Beth Agen for treasurer.

There were no contenders for the positions. After a unanimously passed motion by Reed Intermediate School Assistant Principal Anthony Salvatore to have the secretary mark each member cast a vote for each person running for the positions, Ms Wiedemann congratulated all on their new titles.

The new appointments will take effect in the fall when the council resumes its regular last Thursday of each month meetings from 3 pm until 4pm in the C.H. Booth Library. Meetings are only scheduled during the school year, but Ms Agen said during the meeting that work will still be done over the summer to further Newtown Prevention Council initiatives.

Ms Blanchard reported on the Community Conversation on Underage Drinking, which took place earlier this year and held a final meeting on April 10. The conversation was sponsored by the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund.

“As far as I know, we are not applying for another community conversation,” said Ms Blanchard. She also added the hope is the Newtown Prevention Council will take ownership of the Community Conversation on Underage Drinking next year, and will provide programs to combat the problem. The council will decide in the fall which programs to offer for the topic, but Ms Blanchard said the conversation went well overall.

Other topics during the meeting included setting up a social media training group, which would provide high school students community service hours and adults the ability to understand online social media, like Facebook and Twitter; the Newtown High School group called Students Against Destructive Decisions will be sending out a flyer near graduation to all parents in town to each senior student’s home to remind families of the dangers of underage drinking; and continuing the Freshman Forum on Underage Drinking, which took place at Newtown High School on Monday, April 15.

The freshman forum, for students in the freshman year at NHS and their parents, delivered messages from local experts on underage drinking. Multiple members of the council said the forum was a success, and will be happening again next year. It was the first of its kind at the school, and will have a few tweaks next year, like being held in the fall rather than the spring.