SCHOOLS TRY ALTERNATIVE TO SUSPENSIONS

Those Caught With Drugs Or Alcohol Go Through Three Days Of Self-Assessment

High school principals on the North Shore can require
marijuana-smoking students to attend a three-day substance abuse
course instead of barring them from classes and sending them home for
a few days.

The three-year-old program is called CATS, or Constructive
Alternatives to Teen Suspension.

Ken Neale, coordinator of North Vancouver school district's safe and
caring schools program, says it's an educational alternative to
temporary suspensions when a student is caught red-handed using or
possessing illegal drugs or alcohol.

Neale said many kids don't learn anything, and some just continue
using drugs or alcohol at unsupervised homes when they are required
to stay away from school.

CATS supervisor Terry Bulych said students used to treat a suspension
as a holiday.

"Kids were sleeping in or playing video games," Bulych said during an
interview Wednesday. "They're really weren't stung by consequences."

The CATS program, which is supported by the Vancouver Coastal Health
Authority, Capilano Community Services Society and West Coast
Alternatives Society, is run out of an office near Lions Gate
Hospital. Some weekdays, there are no suspensions and the program
doesn't operate. Other weekdays, counsellors will have three to five
students. They come from high schools in North and West Vancouver.

"We spend a lot of time doing self-assessment exercises where kids
are really looking carefully at their relationship with drugs and how
that's currently impacting their lives," Bulych said.

During the 2005-2006 school year, 164 students in Grades 8 to 12 went
through the CATS program. Second-time offenders are not permitted
back into the group program but can get one-on-one counselling.
Parents are offered an information package and informed about
agencies that can help.

Bulych concedes there's no hard evidence yet the CATS program is
working, but she believes it is reducing substance abuse.

"We're certainly not seeing a high level of recidivism, which is
good," Bulych said. "Getting busted at school and having a
high-profile consequence like coming to a drug program can be a
pretty shocking experience. For many kids, that alone is sufficient
to curb their behaviour."

One of the advocates of the North Vancouver model is Art Steinmann,
manager of a new drug education program in the Vancouver public
school system. Steinmann said the three-day course is a "more
progressive, less punitive" alternative to suspensions.

The broadest measure of marijuana use in the B.C. school system in
recent years appears to be a 2003 survey of more than 30,000 B.C.
students in Grades 7 to 12. The McCreary Centre Society reported that
marijuana use among all age groups had gone down slightly since its
1998 survey: 37 per cent reported using marijuana at least once,
compared with 40 per cent in the previous survey.

Steinmann said a larger percentage of Grade 10 to 12 students likely
use marijuana.

"If anything, it's continuing to slightly increase," he said. "In our
view, it's time to really ramp up our approach to this and see if we
can't do things a little more effectively."