HANOVER PARK TO BRING COPS INTO SCHOOL DRUG BATTLE

EAST HANOVER --Things are going to be different in the two Hanover
Park Regional high schools starting as early as September.

Both Whippany Park in Hanover and Hanover Park in East Hanover will
be getting full-time police "resource officers" stationed in the
schools, Superintendent John W. Adamus said on Thursday.

He spoke hours after the Morris County Prosecutor's Office began
rounding up drug abuse suspects in "Operation Painkiller."

The investigation resulted in the arrests of nearly 60 people,
mostly in and around East Hanover, Florham Park and Hanover, with
most ranging in age from 16 to 25, authorities said.

Nearly all are recent graduates or former Hanover Park Regional High
School students, authorities said.

Four are current students, Adamus said.

Drug Testing Zeal

The superintendent also said on Thursday that if he could have his
way, the high schools would impose random drug testing on all
students. State law, however, doesn't allow such a sweeping testing
policy. It limits testing to athletes, students appearing to be
under the influence of drugs, those who drive to school and other
special circumstances, he said.

"I would like to be able to drug test any kid in school ... if this
student tested positive, we'd be working with the family to get the
student into rehabilitation," Adamus said on Thursday.

The police in the schools'plan represents a change from an earlier
posture held by Adamus.

East Hanover Mayor William Agnellino and Police Chief Stanley Hansen
both said earlier this month they felt resource officers were
warranted at Hanover Park but were waiting for a formal request from
the school district to develop such a program.

After the death of a former Whippany Park student, Holly Gillis, on
July 1, Adamus was asked why schools don't have full-time police
resource officers, despite recommendations from police.

Adamus had replied that an "informal arrangement" with East Hanover,
Florham Park and Hanover police who visit the school occasionally
was "working quite well."

However, somewhere after the prom night arrest of Gary Einloth Jr.,
18, of Florham Park, on drug distribution charges; the July 1 death
of Holly Gillis, of Whippany, and another Whippany Park graduate two
weeks earlier; and Thursday's arrests, the superintendent and school
board changed policy.

Request For Cops

Adamus said he and the board of education made requests to Hanover,
East Hanover and Florham Park to develop a resource officer program.
Town and police officials said they would be hammering out the
details of this plan before the start of the next school year.

"We expect to have resource officers in place in September,"Adamus said.

School board President Jim Neidhardt did not return a phone message
seeking comment.

Adamus also said on Thursday that school officials have known "for
well over a year"that authorities were looking into prescription
drug abuse at the district's two high schools.

The recent arrests do not indicate that the regional high school
district is any more problematic when it comes to abuse of
prescription drugs than other districts or other towns, the
superintendent said. Police and town officials made similar comments.

Parent's Experience

Lois DeCaro, of Hanover, a member of the Substance Awareness
Council, who set up a message board that has been teeming with
questions about drug use from heroin to Oxycodone for many months,
said "obviously we have a problem."

When DeCaro's son told her he had drug problems, she said, that was
the first step in getting him clean.

"My son started using when he was a student at Whippany Park ...,"
DeCaro said. "Maybe the high school will admit they have things to address."

DeCaro said she hopes the resource officer will help the students,
rather than serve just as a law enforcement authority. "If that's
just one kid that's saved from that hell, it's worth it."

One young Hanover man had a different take on the Thursday raids, however.

Paul Fenimore, 20, a recovering addict, and Holly Gillis' former
boyfriend, who spoke recently at a Hanover Township Committee
meeting, said the arrests may have the wrong effects.

"I don't understand what they think they're going to accomplish with
this thing," he said. "It's just going to make more kids smarter and
craftier. I guess the police needed to do something and that the
only thing they can do is arrest people. There's no clear answer."

Communication Call

Adamus, meanwhile, called on the Morris County Prosecutor's Office
and other state agencies to provide regular information to him and
other school administrators about any patterns of drug abuse or
other law enforcement issues related to the school-aged population.

"If we had a little more information from the prosecutor's office
about what the trends were, we would benefit,"Adamus said on
Thursday, suggesting that the prosecutor's office set up a "resource
person" who administrators can call or even a secure Web site with
the latest information on trends for school administrators.

The district's plan for combating drug abuse involves a three-level
effort of "enforcement, education and counseling" with counselors on
campus ready to speak with students, Adamus said. Some students may
not trust teachers, but he said he hopes the school
resource officer would serve in part to combat that mistrust.

He said students are only at the school for a certain number of
hours a day and may be too keen to deal drugs on school grounds. But
the district will do everything it can to push the drugs away, he said.