YOUTH, ELDERS DIALOGUE ABOUT DRUG DOGS, TRUST

According to several Yellow Springs youth, the schools and the
village are not as supportive and inclusive of youth as they should
be, and the youth need more of a voice in making the decisions that
affect them. According to several Yellow Springs elders, the adult
community makes the decisions necessary to keep youth safe, but the
youth do need positive support and a place in town where they feel
welcome. These were some of the opinions that were expressed at a
meeting of 57 people who came to the Senior Center on Saturday, Dec.
20, to talk about youth in the community.

The discussion, sponsored by the Village Human Relations Commission,
came on the heels of Yellow Springs High School's decision to bring
K9 units into the high school to search for illegal drugs on campus.
School principal John Gudgel made the decision in consultation with
Village Police Chief John Grote last month and sent a letter to all
parents informing them of the new measure. School board members
discussed the issue at a board meeting following the letter, but
because the issue is not a policy issue but a building protocol,
Gudgel has the ultimate authority to decide, School Board President
Aida Merhemic and board member Anne Erickson said this week. Though
she would have preferred to have a public discussion before the
decision was made, the board will support the principal in the
regulation of his building, Merhemic said.

The school board and school administration will continue the public
discussion regarding drug dogs in the school at the next PTO meeting
on Wednesday, Jan. 21, and again at the second board meeting of next
month on Thursday, Jan. 22.

Many youth and adults expressed disappointment at Saturday's meeting
that the decision to use drug dogs had been made before a public
discussion could take place. Recent YSHS graduate John Hempfling felt
that the use of unannounced mass searches without individual
suspicion violates students' constitutional right to privacy and
"turns schools into jailhouses," he said, quoting a document from the
American Civil Rights Union Washington chapter. Students aren't
against prohibiting drug use, said YSHS student Dylan Sage, but they
are against intimidation tactics and criminalizing a problem that
should be handled through counseling and education rather than
through the courts.

Senior Ben Miller-Jacobson felt that drug dogs would only serve to
decrease communication and create "an arms race between sneakiness
and surveillance."

Parents Abby Cobb, Lynn Sontag and Emily Fine agreed that drugs can
pose a significant problem in the schools and the community, but that
using drug dogs and the criminal justice system were not an effective
response. The use of mass searches has a wide margin of error and
could easily implicate an innocent student whose unused locker was
being used by another student for drug storage, Fine said. Cobb
suggested increasing open discussion with kids about drugs,
acknowledging their need for "altered reality and spirituality" and
trying to facilitate that search through means other than drug use.

But parent Karen Crist wondered why residents expect students should
have rights to privacy at school, when adult employees don't have it
in the work place. From her perspective, drugs have caused enough
serious damage in Yellow Springs that school and enforcement leaders
should be allowed to do what they feel is needed to curb the problem.

And Gudgel and Grote both defended their choice to search with dogs,
saying that over the years many other measures to reduce drug use in
the schools have been and are being implemented, including substance
abuse counseling and education, student surveys, informants, and
educational and curricular modification. But these measures have not
been able to create what school board policy mandates as a drug-free
and safe environment.

"We have to be honest with ourselves," and acknowledge that basic
information gathering shows that some students have a drug problem,
and "I strongly suspect are using on school grounds," Gudgel said.

The school averages three to four substance abuse problems each year,
according to Gudgel. When a student is found to have drugs at school,
the parents are contacted, and the student is sent home immediately,
along with being obligated to meet with a trained drug abuse
counselor, Gudgel said. The student may be suspended for up to 10
days and subjected to regular testing and therapy. And though the
school is obligated to inform police of a drug incident, unless it is
a major offense, the police leave the school to handle the issue, he said.

"Our objective is to provide therapy and rehabilitation rather than
destroy a student's school career," Gudgel said.

The intent is not to criminalize village youth, said Grote, who feels
that courts aren't an effective means of resolving drug abuse problems.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time I've felt the school can do a better
job of taking care of the problem," he said. "But the purpose for
this decision is that I want there to be action behind the policy of
a drug-free school."

The use of drug dogs in the local schools has been considered as an
additional intervention since the early 1990s, well before the 2002
drug-related murder of Tim Lopez by classmate Michael Rittenhouse,
Gudgel said. The decision was not reactionary but rather a result of
years of deliberation and investigation of the substance abuse
problem at the school, he said.

But according to parent Judith Hempfling at the meeting, drug dogs
will only serve to create distrust and alienate youth from adults who
want to support them. The alienation at school is compounded when
youth feel targeted by adults in the village at large, she said,
referring to downtown patrons and businesses who have called police
after feeling harassed or impeded by youth hanging out in the streets
and sidewalks. The public bench that attracted groups of youth
outside of Tom's Market was removed to reduce complaints from the
public, but the removal communicated to the youth that they are not
wanted, Hempfling said.

"The bench was cool, but it was moved because of some minor problems,
and instead of working out those problems, it's a denial of teens'
rights to have a place there," she said.

Many other adults at the meeting spoke overwhelmingly in support of
making space for youth downtown and welcoming their energy in the
public arena. With great passion, YSHS teacher Beth Lutz-Hackett
advocated bringing youth into the fold by blocking off Short Street
and creating a large town square.

"Teenagers are part of who we are -- they need to have a place, and
we want them to be downtown," she said. "The benches should be there
to welcome all people to be together as a community."

Several youth at the meeting spoke in favor of establishing
institutional empowerment for youth in the schools and the village.
Recent YSHS graduates Rose Pelzl and Anna Forster advocated for
support in maturing the recently created Yellow Springs Youth
Council. The Youth Council could serve to organize and give voice to
youth in defending their democratic rights and working with other
agencies in the community, both said.