PULASKI COUNTY OFFICIALS PLAN WAR ON SUBSTANCE ABUSE

The school board will sign off on a plan within months to combat drug
use and other problems.

Pulaski County school officials are planning an initiative
to drive alcohol and substance abuse out of their schools.

While the plan is far from finished, the tools discussed range from
education to drug tests to searches with drug dogs to a hotline
students can use to anonymously report drug use and drug dealing.

"No students in our schools will use illegal substances ... bottom
line," said Superintendent Don Stowers.

In a survey of 400 students at Pulaski County High School and Pulaski
Middle School last year, 35 percent of the students responding said
they had consumed five or more alcoholic drinks within a few hours at
some point during the previous month.

About a third of the students surveyed said they had used their
parents' prescription drugs at least once.

This data was compiled by the Pulaski County Community Partners.

"We have a problem in this county that's destroying a lot of lives,"
said Paul Phillips, board chairman. "We're taking this seriously."

The school board held a work session on its substance abuse awareness
initiative last week. Administrative officials will consider the
comments of board members and draw up a program for their
consideration.

The school system will also call on the Pulaski Community Partners
Coalition in preparing its program.

Board member Pam Chitwood is a prevention specialist with New River
Valley Community Services and works with that program, which seeks
ways to handle such problems as substance abuse.

"I guess, for the longest time, we believed there was nothing you
could do about these things. And there is something you can do,"
Chitwood said.

The coalition has sponsored units on alcohol abuse for fifth- and
sixth-grade students.

Now, school officials are thinking they should start earlier.

But the initial program will target the seventh and ninth grades
through health classes and other means.

"Fifty-three percent of our trouble last year came from ninth grade,"
Stowers said.

"The reason we can talk about this now, and maybe we couldn't two
years ago, is because of the coalition."

The school system has placed family prevention specialists in its
schools, a step Stowers said also had to be in place before this new
initiative could have been considered.

"There are lots of things in place that we can tap into and use," he
said. "I do think we have enough people. We just have to redirect
some energies to it."

Drug testing may be tried, if it can be done legally.

"The only way you would want to do this is if you had treatment,"
said board Chairman Paul Phillips.

"And it can't be punitive, at least the first one," added Jeff Bain,
another board member.

"You have to realize that some teachers are extremely uncomfortable
dealing with this subject," said Phillips, who has been a school principal.

Some do not feel they are qualified to speak about it, he said.

Bain said parents must play a major part in the program.

"You have to start with the parents," Chitwood agreed, although the
school system has their children longer than the parents do.

Bain said the program should not only involve teachers. Other school
employees such as custodians, secretaries and cafeteria workers
should also be included, he said.

"Those teams should be made up of that. You're absolutely right,"
Stowers said.

Drug-detecting dogs may also be brought in. In fact, Stowers said,
students with whom he has talked suggested that.

The students have also said teachers need to be more aware of things
going on in their classrooms.

Board member John Wenrich suggested a tip line where students could
alert school officials to substance abuse and other problems.

That already happens, said Max Cecil, student services coordinator.
Students report things to the school security officer, among others,
he said.

Cecil said a parent told him the best preventative measure that could
have been done, in retrospect, was to padlock the home medicine chest.

"If our primary goal is to enhance student achievement, and we know
what we do about substance and alcohol abuse," Stowers said, "this is
a way to move us forward."

Clarification, posted 7/3

A survey of Pulaski County students cited in a Saturday story about
the school system dealing with substance abuse was from the 2004 Youth
Risk Behavior Survey at Pulaski County High School.

Thirty-five percent of the respondents said they had consumed five or
more alcoholic beverages in a few hours at some point during the past
month. Students in grades seven and eight at both Dublin and Pulaski
middle schools were also surveyed but had much lower incidents of
binge drinking and were not included in the statistic.

Pam Chitwood, a school board member and a representative of Pulaski
County Community Partners Coalition, said in an e-mail that a 2006
survey at the high school showed 30 percent of students reported binge
drinking. The school system does the survey each spring and compiles
the data, which it shares with the coalition.