PARENTS FIRM ON PHS DRUG ISSUE

PORTSMOUTH - A group of about 50 parents Tuesday night shared poignant
stories of their children's struggles with drugs and urged the
Portsmouth School Board and administration to take action in enforcing
a drug policy at Portsmouth High School that students will respect.

"My hope is that, after today, we won't have to have another meeting
again," said parent Bob Montville, who organized the meeting at the
Comfort Inn to bring the issue of drugs at PHS further out in the open
one week after the board held its own meeting to address the issue.

Montville expressed his hope that attention would be diverted from
himself following his criticism of the School Department regarding the
alleged inconsistency in how students are disciplined for drug
offenses. His criticism caused ire among board members.

He delivered the message, however, that the administration should work
to eradicate the drug problem in the school, which administrators have
said does not exceed that of other schools.

"We hear that Portsmouth is no different than any other school. I
don't want them to treat our school as just average," Montville said.

Jack Anderson, a parent of a PHS student who has fought addiction,
said his son has spoken about the ease with which students have used
drugs inside the school.

"In the bathrooms, in the woods behind school, they're using drugs.
Vicodin, Prozac, Zoloft - prescription drugs are being sold to
students who don't have a prescription," said Anderson, whose son is
now seeking treatment.

"He's been sober for four months. It's almost like we have a new
son."

Parent Robin Bianchi expressed frustration at how her son was punished
for violating the school's athletic contract, compared with how
others, she said, were punished for a similar offense.

When Bianchi learned of her son's offense, she ordered him to tell the
football coach that he had violated the school's athletic contract. He
confessed without the school needing to investigate and was removed
from the team.

"The response," said Bianchi, "was, 'We have a zero-tolerance policy.
It's black and white.'"

But Bianchi alluded to the policy as being "gray," explaining that
when her son's friends were arrested during baseball season, they were
suspended for five games with the privilege of sitting on the bench in
uniform.

"Inconsistency is the backbone of resentment," she said.

Brian Berry, a former Rye School Board member, told the audience how
the school's punishment of his son worked for the better. His son was
suspended from school and as well as the football team for drinking
outside a school dance.

According to Berry, his son got the message loud and clear, and shaped
up.

"He had a brand on him because of the mistake he made," Berry
said.

John Welch, who has helped start a subgroup of the Parent Teacher
Student Association that focuses on drug prevention, credited
first-year PHS principal Forrest Ransdell with "doing a good job up to
this point."

But Welch urged the audience to keep applying pressure to force the
administration to think about better enforcement.

"We need to get you people in front of the School Board," he
said.

Welch said the school will only bring in drug-detecting dogs - which
the administration says it is now considering despite earlier
trepidation - if "we keep the pressure on."

Former athletic director Andrea Ogden, whose position was cut at the
end of last year, presented the parents with a blueprint of an
athletic policy she had proposed to the School Board's athletic
subcommittee.

The current policy is strict, but according to some, not properly
enforced.

Ogden's plan was for a three-strike policy, which she said is clear,
straightforward and has been used in other school districts.

"I asked them to present it to the board," said Ogden. "Nothing
happened."

School Board members were invited to the meeting but declined the
invitation, claiming that a state law requiring a public announcement
of a 'quorum' of the board prohibited them from attending.

However, board member Nansi Craig was in attendance, although she said
she came "as an observer" and declined to comment about the meeting.

Police officials were also asked to come, but they stayed away as
well.

The meeting concluded with the parents listing a set of action items
that they want to see implemented by either the School Board or the
administration.

The items included a definite time line on bringing the drug-sniffing
dogs into the schools, an explanation of what a zero-tolerance policy
means, a time line on changes to the athletic contract and a stated
opinion of the drug policy from all members of the School Board.