Saturday, April 26, 2008

Classroom drinking incident results in tighter rules at LLHS

Kenn Rodriguez News-Bulletin Staff Writer; krodriguez@news-bulletin.com

Los Lunas A recent alcohol incident involving as many as eight seniors at Los Lunas High School caused a crackdown on food and drink in the classroom and has district officials calling for the community to examine substance abuse in Valencia County.

LLHS principal Claudia Krause-Johnson said the incident occurred on Thursday, Feb. 21. A group of students snuck a sport bottle full of vodka into school and drank from it during class.

Krause-Johnson said one female student became so intoxicated that she required medical attention.

"There was one student who had probably consumed a fairly large amount of alcohol for that student's body weight," said District Superintendent Walt Gibson. "And we did have paramedics there. We were concerned. She did go to the hospital."

Krause-Johnson said the student was well enough to return to school the next day.

"There was no long-term damage," Gibson said. "But she had a blood-alcohol level that was enough to concern us. Basically, there was a substitute teacher. A group of students brought alcohol into the classroom. And they were drinking in the classroom - seriously drinking. And, obviously, they got caught."

Gibson and Krause-Johnson said the students were disciplined ranging from three days to long-term suspension.

"Obviously, the kids who brought the alcohol were in much more serious trouble than the kids who just drank it," Gibson said. "Although any kid that we could prove was involved got punished according to our discipline code."

As a result, Krause-Johnson said she suspended all food and drink in classroom privileges until after spring break.

The substitute who was in charge of the classroom where the drinking incident occurred has also been let go by the district, Gibson said.

"The substitute will no longer be employed by the school," he said. "I can't go into that obviously in any great detail, but there were more circumstances that alarmed us. The way in which this happened led us to believe the substitute wasn't paying attention to her responsibilities, being inattentive, not paying attention."

Krause-Johnson said she met with teachers in a staff meeting the day after the incident and again over the subsequent weeks to get an idea of what she should do.

After spring break, students were allowed to bring water into classes and are allowed to eat during the first 10 minutes of class.

Krause-Johnson said she and the staff would evaluate the current food and drink policy over the summer and determine if changes need to be made.

The official policy is that food and drink had been prohibited, but both Krause-Johnson and Gibson said it had been selectively enforced.

"While the whole staff supported the decision to allow water, I do have some staff that would like to see the kids be allowed to eat and drink in the classroom," Krause-Johnson said. "However, due to the circumstances in February, we decided to allow only water in the classroom for the rest of the year."

Gibson said Los Lunas High's prohibition on food and drink was "not a new rule but a newly enforced rule.

"Our handbooks prohibit food and drink in the classroom," he said. "They have for a long time, and maybe we got lax with that. So we are now enforcing that rule, which has been there for a long time. We're not trying to be dogmatic about it or mean-spirited. This is something we need to deal with."

Gibson said as bad as the situation was, it's more of a "root issue" regarding substance abuse in the community.

"Teenage drinking is an issue that we have to deal with," he said. "We know because we see the aftereffects and the results. Drinking in this community is way too prevalent. And we need to deal with it with parent education, student education and community education. It's a dangerous pastime.

"It speaks to some issues we have with substance abuse in this community that carry over into the high school. This was a fairly dramatic example of the depth and breadth of what we're dealing with. Kids that would bring alcohol to a classroom and drink in a classroom really speaks to us about the need to deal, as a community, with the substance abuse issues we have."

Gibson said he briefed the Los Lunas School Board about the incident and discussions are ongoing about the issue of teenage drinking and substance abuse in the community.

"One of the things I really feel strongly about is that we need to make an effort - not a school effort but a community-wide effort — to deal with substance abuse," he said. "I think the basic issue we have to start with isn't what you often read about in the newspapers. You read more about meth (amphetamine), you read about cocaine, you even read about pot. We need to start with alcohol.

"Alcohol is the drug of choice of most high school kids, and it's illegal and we need to start to deal with it," Gibson said. "It's not something we can deal with alone. We need the help of the community, of the local government, of state agencies."

Krause-Johnson said that LLHS counselors had been instructed to expand their education efforts about alcohol abuse beyond freshman and sophomore and to include juniors and seniors as a result of the February incident.

Gibson said the district is also getting into discussion with village and county officials about getting more information and education about substance abuse in the community.

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