PARENTS AND POLICE DREAM OF DRUG FREE ZONE

Concerned parents and the local law enforcement have at least one
thought in common: A.E.S.S. needs to be placed in a drug free zone.
This is not a small amount of work or a fast one, but it is something
the new RCMP school liaison officer, Gaetan Parr, is committed to. He
is working with a fellow officer who has accomplished drug free
zoning in a previous location and knows the paperwork route to get
there. The main obstacle to the drug-free zone is the difficulty of
demonstrating the need to Crown, Parr admits.

Crown wants to be shown large quantities of drugs and so far, only
small amounts have been found. This does not mean the problem is
small, only that the product is well hidden.

Within an established "drug free zone" according to the RCMP,
penalties are twice as severe.

Parr, who covers all of district 78's schools, shares his concerns
that "in BC and in the lower mainland especially, there is a lax
attitude towards pot." He cites statistics that say next to wood,
marijuana is B.C.'s second export.

He is concerned with the pervasive beliefs that it's just pot, a drug
people are not taking as seriously as they should.

Statistics backs RCMP school liaison officer up. According to the
2004 Canadian Addiction Survey, 44.5 per cent of Canadians reported
trying marijuana at least once, significantly up from 23.3 percent in
1989. Canadians reported a 14.1 per cent general use of the drug
compared with 10.6 per cent of Americans and 9.7 per cent of Britons.

A.E.S.S. parent, Sharon Verde, says she backs the drug-free zone and
hopes it comes to fruition.

Its mention does not allay all of her concerns, however.

Of the meeting held, she says she was frustrated with the emphasis on
education.

She applauds efforts to arm each teacher with material to inform kids
on the dangers of drugs, but says while "education is good; education
has been here all along" through the long standing D.A.R.E. program
and other efforts and she feels it has proven itself to "not [be]
enough to combat this problem." Another concern she had was that
"nothing at the meeting" addressed the possibility of students
selling drugs within the school itself, a very real possibility, she
says, given past experience.

She agrees with the superintendent, Dr. Neumeier "that all the
parents need to be involved...Not just some of them," she stresses.

A nurse by profession, Verde worries about the future of the kids who
are habitually failing at making the wrong choices and are continuing
on a destructive path. "Ultimately, the kids are the ones making the
choices," Verde says, but she is concerned that by not having
powerful deterrent consequences for the kids, we as adults are
failing them. "As a nurse I have cared for [long term] drug addicted
patients," she says, "And we need to [deter] kids before that point."
She agrees with the team at A.E.S.S. that it is not just a school
problem, but "a community problem," as well.

The administration and the RCMP have both expressed frustration with
the lack of proof which is needed both for the advancement of the
"drug free zone" establishment and for the suspension interventions
that result in drug and alcohol counseling for the students caught
using or in possession of drugs or alcohol.

They have been doing what they can to randomly search lockers and
have plainclothes police officers around the school vicinity.

While they have suspicious activity and persons earmarked, more work
needs to be done to catch the suspects in the act.

At the meeting, Wendy Colman, drug and alcohol counsellor at A.E.S.S,
shared a bit of the school's program, the result of her committed
work to the problem.

She says the school's program arms the kids with resilience and
empowerment to keep them safe to make the right choices and to
rehabilitate kids who have made the wrong choices while the school
works to rid itself of the drug problem.

She is confident, noting that even kids on hard street drugs in the
past have benefited from what the program offers.

While some parents including Verde, have concerns with the Alternate
school now being in close proximity to A.E.S.S, the Alternate school
vice-principal states that now they can "track the kids more closely"
and now that it's in town there is 'better attendance.' For the kids
who skip out, the administration and community youth workers are able
to round them up in town and bring them back to school.

Parents at the meeting heard advice from parents who have traveled
down life's road with a child addicted to crystal meth. According to
the school's survey, crystal meth use by students has stayed constant
at 3 per cent of students for the last five years.

The couple speaking, whose identity was protected for the sake of
their rehabilitated child now grown and clean and living in a
different community, also advocated stronger programs, but applauded
the fact that there were any here at all. They expressed confidence
in the school anti-drug team's abilities.

They told parents to "listen to their gut feelings" and "get
educated" about drugs. "If you think something's going on with your
kid, you're probably right," they said. They also encouraged parents
to "go get help" for their kids as soon as they suspect their
children are using drugs as indicated by sudden strange behavior.

They shared that at first they simply chalked their son's behavior
typical teenage angst, but it was so much more. "Don't try to deal
with it yourself.

Put the shame and embarrassment aside and call."

Zero tolerance, as explained by Dr. Neumeier, is based within an
interventionist model the school's policies are governed by. It does
not mean, as some might assume, that the school is going to kick kids
out of school never to return again in the case of one mistake involving drugs.

Even advocates for stronger consequences like Verde are not in favor
of that approach.

She says that kids who make a mistake with drugs should be
intercepted early and be given the tools like rehabilitation and
counselling in order to get back into the mainstream schooling.

Dr. Neumeier explains that "zero tolerance" means that the
administration will always intervene where they have the proof to do
so and that the school community itself has zero tolerance for
uncooperative students and families.

There are individual challenges facing small town schools like
A.E.S.S. One of these challenges, according to Dr. Neumeier, is that
there are approximately 100 students coming and going every year at
A.E.S.S. making Agassiz "a community of transition." As to getting
kids out of the drug culture, which Neumeier admits is key, Agassiz
does not have the luxury of a bigger city like Chilliwack to have two
high schools to pass rehabilitated students back and forth to
interrupt their drug culture belonging.

Another disadvantage Agassiz has, according to Parr, is that there is
no separate middle school. In spite of these drawbacks, many times
the small communities are the ones that because of their size can
pull together and watch out for each others' kids.

Parents can encourage their children to be extra eyes and ears at the
school and to report suspicious and known activity or fellow
classmates they are concerned about and know that there are resources
to deal with them. The fastest way to get drugs out of the school is
to find their hard proof which can lead to suspensions, arrests, and
rehabilitation. As mentioned previously, A.E.S.S. has increased
supervision, drug and alcohol counselling in place, drug awareness
materials that will be taught across all subjects, and has Parr as a
RCMP presence, building trust and accountability with the students.

The RCMP does not anticipate getting Crown on board for a "drug free
zone" being an easy task. "It needs to be a public matter of
interest," Parr says. "We need the community on board." He advocates
everyone pulling together quickly.

There are "a lot of kids on the fence [about drugs]" he says. The
time to act is now. "Marijuana is prevalent [among the students],"
the RCMP says. Talk to your kids, report suspicious activity to the
police, and be an adult presence wherever you can. Ernest Middleton,
community youth worker also preaches what he practices. "Go be an
adult presence at kid hot spots," he says and, "Get as much support
[for yourselves] as parents as possible."