MW sees slight uptick in drug use, drop in bullying complaints

Monroe-Woodbury Central School District Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, Dr. Eric Hassler, cited the legalization and accessibility of cannabis as the main reason for a significant increase of reported incidents of drug use, sale and/or possession of drugs in the school district.

According to the district’s School Safety and Educational Climate report, presented by Hassler during the August 14 Board of Education meeting, the district reported 62 incidents involving drugs at Monroe-Woodbury High School, compared with 32 last year. The district also reported 12 incidents at the middle school, compared with zero from the prior year.

Hassler emphasized the district’s policy of enforcement of consequences, saying that any students found in possession of or distributing drugs or paraphernalia are subject to out of school suspension and referred to law enforcement. The bigger issue, Hassler claimed, is the lack of availability of counseling and related problems to help children impacted by drugs.

“When we catch kids doing a variety of different things, we work really hard to try to, aside from just the consequence, get kids into various programs or whatever. It’s really, really hard finding seats in various programs,” said Hassler.

Superintendent Elsie Rodriguez supported Hassler’s claims, adding that students who attend these programs often receive a shorter suspension. She commented that students who are suspended and stay home are likely to just get high, and the school wants to work with the parents to get kids into intervention programs, except those options are limited.

Despite the limitations, Hassler said the district is working at improving prevention. He pointed to their full-time prevention specialist, Zebadiah Francis, who was hired this spring.

Hassler also noted that students were also concerned about the prevalence of vaping, sharing that this was an issue brought up by the Student Engagement Committee.

The board discussed how, in certain cases, students claim to treat their anxiety, depression or other mental issues with drugs like cannabis, due to difficulty accessing prescriptions from a healthcare provider. They also discussed the stigma parents may feel about medicating their children, leading to the possibility that students are looking for other, often prohibited, means of medicating themselves.

Regardless of the reasons cited for the increased use of cannabis and other substances, the board agreed that greater education was needed to ensure students are fully aware of the physical, social and psychological effects of continued drug use.

Bullying drops

During their discussion of the School Safety and Educational Climate report, the board noted that while drug-related incidents had risen, reports of bullying went down. Notably, the district reported four incidents of bullying (including three involving cyberbullying) at the high school level, compared with 17 incidents in the prior year. No incidents were reported at the middle school or elementary school level this year, compared with multiple incidents reported the year before.

Hassler and others at the board meeting were quick to acknowledge that the Monroe-Woodbury School District is very large and that, while drug use, bullying and other issues concern the district, with over 2,300 students at the school alone, the ratio of incidents to number of students is relatively low.

Other business

During the meeting, the board also approved the use of the SuperEval rubric for the annual performance evaluation of the Superintendent of Schools. This will be implemented for the evaluation of newly appointed Monroe-Woodbury Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Tracy Norman.