Members of the South County Collaborative asked Morgan Hill
Unified School District Board of Education trustees at their last
meeting to partner with their group to help change the culture of
the community regarding alcoholic beverages.
Morgan Hill – Members of the South County Collaborative asked Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Education trustees at their last meeting to partner with their group to help change the culture of the community regarding alcoholic beverages.
Superintendent Alan Nishino said district staff would consider the proposal and keep trustees informed.
The group wants to work with district schools to develop an educational program that focuses on the attitudes of the community in general toward alcohol use instead of individual minors using alcohol.
Dina Campeau, chairwoman of the group, told trustees that schools are their “natural allies” in this effort. They want to change what they see as the attitude that drinking at prom parties and graduation parties, specifically, as well as drinking anytime by underage teens, is acceptable.
“We’ve been talking with members of the school district since August; now we’re coming into spring, and we’d like to head off the prom,” she said.
Nishino said he would meet with Coordinator of Student Services Bob Davis and Assistant Superintendent Educational Services Michael Johnson to come up with some ideas to bring back to the board.
Trustee Bart Fisher asked what kind of timeline Nishino had in mind for bringing a proposal back to the board, saying he would like to see something done to address the issue during the current academic year.
“My sense is that we would have progress reports during every meeting,” Nishino said. “We’ll see how that fits into our very aggressive curriculum development we’re doing now.”
The South County Collaborative did not present a plan for working with the schools, though group members did mention that “youth advocates” would be used in a peer counseling format. Education aimed at “entry-level drinkers” to keep them from starting to use alcohol, along with a move to change attitudes about drinking in the teen community are a focus for the group.
Trustee Julia Hover-Smoot agreed that substance abuse education is valuable, but said the district has an education program in place, and she said she wasn’t sure how this program could supplement it. Her other concern, she added, is that the district is already “mining for academic time,” and she wondered how this could be squeezed into the school day.
“The current curriculum involves individual decision-making,” Campeau said. “This is about the culture of the community, the norms in our community, not at all about individual choices and putting the onus on the individual.”
Campeau said the group really wants to work on changing the culture of drinking by teenagers so that occasions such as proms and graduation nights don’t have tragic results. She also noted that studies show that when teens, who are still growing and developing, use alcohol it affects their development. Studies also indicate that people who drink before they are old enough to legally do so have a greater risk of becoming alcoholic or having a drinking problem, she added.
Trustee Shelle Thomas advised the group to seek out the parent groups such as the district’s Home & School Clubs, as well as the committees for the Live Oak and Sobrato “Grad Nights.”
“The power of parents is really something,” she said. “I think you should try to connect with them and sell your message to them … Those organizations, they need that kind of information, they will be able to put that kind of information out.”
