TEACHABLE MOMENT

Alarmed over marijuana, a principal cracks down

BILLERICA -- Word came in through a phone call from a parent: An
eighth-grader was allegedly dealing marijuana at Marshall Middle School.
Principal Roland Boucher did some sleuthing and decided that the
intelligence was credible, so the 51-year-old father of three swung into
action.

He called the police. A day later, at the principal's prompting, an officer
handcuffed an eighth-grader and took him off campus. It was a rare move on a
middle school campus.

The principal also dealt severely with seven other students, who faced
suspension or expulsion. After the late March incident, the 900-student
suburban middle school was left wondering: Had a problem had been solved or
merely uncovered? Boucher believed it was the latter and launched a campaign
to drive the point home. He held meetings with eighth-graders, sent letters
to their homes, and mentioned the incident to parents in a monthly mailing.

"I think it could easily have been more than eight," Boucher said in an
interview. "The problem is widespread. I know it's a significant percentage
of students. I can't put a number on it, but a significant percentage of
middle-school students in this community and in every community experiment
with marijuana. I want to make parents and the community aware of that."

Police and school officials in some towns say they might not have acted so
publicly about a similar situation in their middle schools. But others say
that Boucher's immediate involvement of police and his follow-up meetings
struck the right chord with the target audience: students. That's no small
feat for a principal fighting to be heard amidst the distractions clamoring
for teenagers' attention.

"It made people think twice," said eighth-grader Brian Hazel, 13. " They
might not want to bring drugs to school."

Marshall's MCAS scores are far above the statewide average, and its students
mostly return home to two-parent families with stable, middle-class incomes,
according to census figures. In short, the Marshall seems the prototypical
suburban middle school, which is exactly what worries Boucher.

"This activity is going on in mainstream America," Boucher said, "and people
have to be aware of it."

Nationally, a 2002 survey called "Monitoring The Future" indicated that 8
percent of eighth-graders reported using marijuana in the previous month. In
Massachusetts, 7.5 percent of Bay State middle-schoolers said they used
marijuana recently, according to a state Department of Public Health study
in 2002.

Statistics do not show an increase in marijuana use among eighth-graders,
but police and school officials are worried, because they say abuse of
marijuana often leads to use of cocaine and other harder drugs. They don't
want to see tragedies like the one that occurred April 10; a Malden Catholic
High School hockey star died, and his 16-year-old girlfriend was
hospitalized at Massachusetts General Hospital after apparent drug
overdoses. Last night, a security spokesman at Mass. General said no
information about the girl, Kaylee O'Brien, could be released.

These days, marijuana is also more potent than what middle-schoolers'
parents might have smoked in previous decades, police said.

When the police officer arrived at Marshall, he and Boucher interviewed
three students in the empty cafeteria, Boucher said. Two allegedly reached
into a shoe or sock to hand over packets of marijuana. The one student
arrested had faced earlier drug charges for activity outside school, Boucher
said.

The parents of the other seven students picked them up. Some parents shed
tears as Boucher explained what had happened. Boucher did not want to detail
the offenses against individual students, for fear of identifying them. But
he said that two of the eight faced criminal drug charges. The others faced
school disciplinary action because they had marijuana, intended to sell it,
or had a marijuana pipe. In all, five were suspended, and three faced
expulsion.

Earlier in the year, when two students were disciplined for drugs, Boucher
did not air the news publicly. This time, the scope of the drug activity
stunned him.

So Boucher began explaining to his eighth-graders what happened. Earlier
this month, before a class of about 15 students, he outlined what happened.

"I don't like to play the role of sheriff," Boucher told them. "I didn't
like to do it with my own kids, and I don't like to do it with you."

The eighth-graders had just a few queries. One girl asked, "Are you going to
go through everyone's locker?"

"No. There are over 1,000 lockers," Boucher said. "I have no desire to go
through all of your lockers, because, quite honestly, some of them are
pretty gross."

Later, eighth-grader Steve Bak, 14, said he thought bringing police to
school was a bit much. "I think it could have been handled much more
quietly," he said. "Maybe they could have been called to the office one by
one." Kate Berg, whose son, Bobby, is a Marshall eighth-grader, said she was
glad Boucher was candid.

"The principal did step up to the plate," Berg said. "He didn't sugarcoat
it. We were alerted right off the bat."

Today, many school systems have agreements with police departments outlining
how they should handle such incidents. Newton's, for example, is being
updated to cover arrest procedures on campus, Newton police Sergeant Ken
Dangelo said. Generally, Newton police act discreetly if they arrest
students at school, by concealing handcuffs or leading teenagers out a back
door. "We're not there to make a statement," Dangelo said.

In Chelmsford, where three middle-schoolers were arrested in February and
March, Detective Kenny Duane said police and school officials have agreed to
arrest students right away. They try to minimize disrupting school or
frightening other students by apprehending the youths in the office. "In
some cases, you want the rest of the student body to see it," Duane said.
"You want a message sent: This is not going to be allowed."

That is Boucher's message. The principal has asked his teachers to be
vigilant and his students to be aware.

"If you're doing something illegal," Boucher told the eighth-graders,
"you're going to get caught."