Butler schools: Rethinking drug prevention amid opioid cloud

“That’s probably my fault,” said Bill Halle, a Butler Area school board member. “The board of Butler actually had passed a policy to have naloxone at the school. To make a long story short, I was successful at getting that overturned.”

Mr. Halle is well-versed in the realities of addiction. His life’s work is the Grace Youth and Family Foundation, which helps the homeless and kids with drug problems. He’s got mixed feelings about naloxone, which can reverse an overdose, but not an addiction.

First, revived users sometimes get violent. Second, he thinks the money spent on naloxone could be better spent on prevention. Third, the lifesaving drug sends a message that students shouldn’t receive, in his view: “It would be not so bad to OD in school if the school had the ability to bring you back.”

None of the dead were high school students. But many students have felt the effects. Superintendent Brian White said that an elementary school counselor in the district has, in the past year, worked with the children of three overdose victims.

More broadly, there’s a cloud over Butler.

“There’s a tremendous pride in this community, and at the same time, [students] know things aren’t how they should be,” the superintendent said. “They don’t want it to be recognized as the center of an opioid crisis.”

The district’s reaction to the overdoses includes the StandTall Program, in which some 250 students agree to be subject to random drug testing, march against heroin and share social activities.

That’s the carrot. The stick is the strictest disciplinary provisions of any school drug policy reviewed by the Post-Gazette. Any student caught buying, selling, possessing, using or appearing to be under the influence of drugs faces a 10-day out-of-school suspension, followed by either a drug assessment and treatment, or expulsion.

That old-school approach can backfire, according to experts.

In the 1980s, many schools took a “zero tolerance” approach to drugs, said Robert Vincent, a public health analyst at the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. “There were states — entire states — that were recommending a one-year suspension on a drug infraction,” he said. That may have deterred some kids, but for any student caught, it was disastrous. “In effect, you were ending any academic career that student might

have had.”

In-school suspension with guidance may be a better approach, said Janet Welsh, an assistant professor at Penn State University, who runs the Prevention Center in the College of Health and Human Development. Out-of-school suspension can nudge a student toward dropping out, and “puts kids on the streets during the day, which is not where you want them, especially if they’re getting into trouble.”

Butler’s superintendent said he realized shortly after joining the district in September that its drug prevention effort “was antiquated. It looked like we needed a comprehensive refresh.” He said that the district is likely to review its policies after it gets results from its participation, for the first time, in the state’s Pennsylvania Youth Survey, which aims to suss out student attitudes toward drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

An approach that is all law-and-order, said Mr. Halle, is “ineffective with today’s youth.” He has worked with students who have ignored such warnings, drifted into drug abuse and struggled to recover. “The kids are angry” about the quality of drug education they received, he said. “Nobody talked to them about the anatomy of addiction and the effect on the brain.”

Mr. White is trying to get grant money to buy a proven program called Life Skills Training, in which students get 30 sessions, over three years, in training in social skills, self-discipline, drug awareness and resisting peer pressure. Those sessions are a big commitment for a district. “If we prevent one kid from going down a path to addiction,” he said, “it’s worth the time.”

Rich Lord: rlord@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1542
First Published March 26, 2018, 8:18 am

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