Mandatory drug education programs – for parents |
On Board Online • October 15, 2012
By Lisa A. Johnson
Special Correspondent
If a parent education program that some schools in Western New York currently use had been around in 2005, Janice Struebel believes that her son might still be alive.
A mother of five in the Erie County village of Angola, Struebel wishes she had known more about teenagers and alcohol before her youngest son, Mathew, fell from a balcony and suffered a fatal injury at age 17.
And if better parent education had been available back then, maybe adults in her community would have been more likely to report underage drinking parties and those who feel it is acceptable to host them – including the mother who was present at the house where Mathew drank.
“Parents are not supposed to bury their children,” Struebel said. After her son’s death, she joined Citizens for Responsible Choices (CRC), a Buffalo-area group that thinks all high schools should require parents to attend drug awareness sessions. The group models its approach off a program that started in Arizona.
Currently 19 of 32 districts in Erie County have created such programs in cooperation with the CRC. Unless at least one parent or guardian attends, their high school student is not permitted to attend various school social functions, sometimes including homecoming dances and proms.
Typically, districts offer the sessions to the parents of students entering their freshman year of high school, and attending a single session secures extracurricular permission for all four years of high school for each child.
The Lake Shore school district became the first to adopt the program when its school board voted unanimously in favor of the proposal in 2006. One strong advocate was then-board member Matthew G. Smith, a prevention professional for more than 20 years.
“I have always supported the mandate because there is a lot of information parents need to know, and getting that information to them has historically been challenging,” he said. “Through the mandating of parent forums, we have exponentially increased the number of parents who learn this important information.”
Mandating attendance increases awareness, said Anne Monin, coordinator of the Family Support Center in the Lancaster Central School District, which also works with the CRC.
“In the past when we have provided various workshops on alcohol/drug use with teens, we had a very low turnout,” she said. “We felt that this information is important and that all parents need to hear the important information we have to say. It is for the safety and well-being of their children.”
During a session at the end of August in the Depew Central School District, parents gathered around a table of paraphernalia wearing expressions of disbelief. Eileen Kennedy of Lancaster, whose twin daughters were preparing to enter ninth grade at Lancaster High School, was surprised to see hollowed-out hair spray cans and modified water bottles.
“I’ve never seen to what lengths kids will go to hide drugs or alcohol,” Kennedy said while inspecting a flip-flop flask. “You try to stay aware and you always think, ‘Not my kids,’ but nobody’s immune.”
Parents usually have no clue about the substances their children are being exposed to, said Sally Yageric, parent program coordinator with the Erie County Council for the Prevention of Alcohol and Substance Abuse in Buffalo and an instructor of the classes for parents. For instance, marijuana in the 1970s contained 0.05 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), versus 10 percent today.
“They used to funnel beer – now they funnel vodka,” Yageric said. “There are just things that parents need to know about than years ago.”
According to Yageric, there is no statewide law that holds adults accountable when they host underage drinking parties. But 13 of 62 counties have so-called “social host” laws that hold adult homeowners accountable for anything that happens in their home or on their property after youth are served alcohol. Twenty-nine municipalities also have such laws.
Participation in the parent program is high. For instance it’s 98 percent among Lancaster parents and 96 percent in Depew schools, which jointly offer the sessions.
A few parents have resisted the school’s efforts as challenges to their parenting, said Depew Superintendent Jeffrey Rabey, who supported establishment of the mandatory programs in his district and also in Lake Shore, where he was formerly superintendent. But most parents leave the sessions with positive attitudes, he said.
Struebel, who now serves as CRC coordinator, said she thinks the programs are worthwhile if they save just one life in the future.
“As parents become aware of the dangers out in the community and what their children are exposed to, hopefully they will also take a stand and join together to do something about it,” she said. “It makes me feel good to know that the parent forums are spreading across the county and more schools are getting involved.”
Lisa A. Johnson is a Buffalo- area freelance writer who formerly served as coordinator of the Lancaster-Depew Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition.