Calais works on drug policy> Rising problems spur community to seek schoolwide answers

CALAIS — With concern about escalation of drug problems in the city’s schools, the school committee Wednesday night decided to re-examine its policies.

The school department has three sets of policies: a school board policy, a high school academic policy, and a high school athletic policy, Chairman Regina Taylor told more than 30 people at the meeting.

The policy included in the student handbook says that any student caught smoking or using drugs or alcohol on school property will be suspended for 10 days with an automatic expulsion hearing before the school committee.

The athletic policy states any athlete who is caught using drugs or alcohol will be suspended for two weeks and be required to meet with a substance abuse counselor.

Taylor said she would like to see one policy that was applicable to everyone.

The school committee agreed that the problem isn’t restricted to high school students and that a schoolwide policy should be adopted.

The school committee voted to appoint a subcommittee made up of a cross-section of people from the community to review the policies and make recommendations to the full school committee. The panel also agreed that after the new panel had reviewed the policies and made its recommendations, the school committee would seek public comment before any new policy is adopted.

Last week, staff at the Robbinston Grade School wrote the school committee to express concern about the school policy.

“We find it ironic that our public secondary school has such a forgiving attitude toward this issue with its students when most other secondary schools in the state are cracking down or have always maintained a tougher policy toward student violations in this area,” the staff said in the letter.

In December, four Calais varsity basketball players — each of whom played regularly — were suspended from the team for at least two weeks for violating the substance abuse policy in the school’s athletic code. Players and their parents are required to read and sign a statement of the substance abuse policy before the student athletes are permitted to compete in a sport.

The suspensions came after first-year head coach Randy Morrison witnessed the violation by the four players after a game against Madawaska.

Although school officials preferred not to divulge the nature of the violation, they confirmed that the violation late last year involved the substance abuse portion of the athletic code.

Some school districts have adopted a zero-tolerance policy, and students found with an illegal substance are either removed from a team for the rest of the season or suspended from school.

Former school committee chairman Maria Tickle said the school committee should adopt a zero-tolerance policy on the issue.

“Most of the state is going to zero tolerance, and I agree there should not be any first or second offenses,” she told the committee.

Calais Elementary School Principal Jim Frost agreed that the two-week suspension policy ought to be changed because students were not using it to seek help.

“I think you’ve got to decide philosophically what your drug and alcohol policy is going to be,” he said. He said it was at one time the policy that if a student was caught with drugs or alcohol, “they were off the team for the rest of the year.”

He said that policy was changed when the school committee realized it did not work.

“You found a lot of parents and students covering up, lying because they didn’t want to want to lose their opportunity to play,” he said. “I am of the mind that maybe we ought to just put the fear of God in kids and say, `Hey, if you get caught, you’re off for six months.”‘

High School Principal Michael Chadwick said the problem is getting worse and that it is communitywide.

“Last year we took a student to the hospital who almost died,” he said. He said most people in the community would be surprised at the number of students who are using and abusing drugs.

He also recommended the school committee adopt a policy of random drug testing.

He said that at one time only a small segment of the student population was involved in drug use. But that has changed, Chadwick said, with drug and alcohol use crossing “all the lines. Our best kids are just as guilty as our troubled kids. … Some night in that gym an athlete is going to drop dead because they are using,” he said.