TRUSTEES, MAYOR ARGUE OVER METH SUSPENSIONS

Hundreds of Maple Ridge students are not being suspended because of
crystal meth use, School District 42 trustees vehemently said Wednesday.

Maple Ridge Mayor Gord Robson suggested a couple of hundred students
in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows schools have been suspended because
of crystal meth use.

That's not even close to the truth, trustees said at Wednesday's
school board meeting.

Of 507 total suspensions for secondary students during the last
school year, 116 were drug-related. Of those, 93 had to do with
marijuana use. The other 23 were not identified, but none of them
were earmarked as dealing with crystal meth use.

"Crystal meth suspensions have not come to our table," said Cheryl
Ashlie, the school board's chairwoman.

The board does believe some students are using the highly addictive
drug, said Ashlie, estimating, based on studies, that about four per
cent of the student population uses high-risk drugs such as heroine,
cocaine and crystal meth.

Alcohol and marijuana are the two drugs concerning school district
staff the most, said Ashlie, not crystal meth.

Trustees used words like "unsubstantiated" and "irresponsible" about
Robson's remarks, and feared that Robson was "fear mongering."

"We don't have hundreds of kids being suspended - we know that," said
trustee Dave Rempel.

If the school board doesn't think there are children in the schools
doing crytal meth, said Robson, "I can take them to 20 or 30 myself
that I know of I could introduce them."

Robson said that Maple Ridge does have a crystal meth problem, and he
can't figure out why anyone would want to deny it.

"To suggest that there is no meth in our high schools and that
anybody who says there is is a bad person or an alarmist is absolute insanity."

According to Robson, a student survey completed within the Surrey
School District showed that 12 per cent of Grade 8 kids have used crystal meth.

That number drops to eight per cent by Grade 12, he said.

But can Maple Ridge be compared to Surrey?

"I would think that we're not much different in the Fraser Valley. We
may be a little better than Surrey, but if half of the kids are
suspended because of crystal meth that's five a week."

But Ashlie told a parent, whose child attends Maple Ridge Secondary
School, at Wednesday's meeting that her daughter is safe at MRSS.