NO CASH TO FIGHT DRUGS

School District 73's drug and alcohol action plan is working, but it's
costing plenty.

Curbing the number of drug- and alcohol-related suspensions in the district
has cost about $1 million over three years, and the federal government has
refused to ante up even a portion of that cost.

District administration was turned down for the $550,000 it had requested
from Health Canada's Drug Strategy Community Initiatives Fund. That money,
said student support services director Karl deBruijn, will now have to come
from classroom funding.

"We've hired a drug and alcohol education co-ordinator, we've developed a
comprehensive education program for parents, teaching staff and students,"
deBruijn said.

The district has hired an RCMP liaison for schools, and starting in
September, two full-time teachers will work on directed suspension programs
- - working with children who have been suspended due to run-ins with drugs
and alcohol.

As a result of the initiatives, there has been a reduction in the number of
drug- and alcohol-related suspensions, deBruijn said, but success doesn't
come cheap.

"Over a three-year period, this has cost the board $1 million.

"We had applied to Health Canada for about $550,000," he said, but were
unsuccessful.

In a short letter, Adrienne Taplin-White, program officer of the
initiatives fund, cited "high demand and limited resources," as reasons for
denying funding.

Trustee Dick Dickens scoffed at the reasoning, considering "the federal
government is currently sitting on a $9-billion surplus."

With no help from the feds, the district is forced to spend "resources we
could be using in the classroom," deBruijn said.

Trustees voted to send a "strongly worded" letter back to both federal
Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh an Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP Betty Hinton,
asking them to reconsider.

"Our MP, who we met with in the spring, has not produced one penny of
federal government funds toward any of the programs . . . that we requested
her to work on," Dickens said of Hinton.

"She is either totally incapable of gaining any government resources for
our school district, or has not worked hard enough on our behalf." Trustee
Kim Van Tine added: "I think it's time the MP for this area started
fighting for people in the area rather than taking swipes at the current
sitting government."

Drugs and alcohol, deBruijn said, aren't a school-based issue, but a
community one, therefore it shouldn't be up to the district to fund these
programs independently.

"Our plan has always been to get partners for funding. So far, the partners
have not come forward."