Adam Henkins’ career with Monongalia County Schools is going up in smoke these days.
That’s why the district’s director of Safe Schools appeared before Mon’s Board of Education Tuesday night.
One of his more vexing issues these days is present in the form of those wispy contrails left in the restrooms and main hall crannies generated by vapes and the students who are ardent consumers.
Use, that will oftentimes contain the full blessing of their parents, he said.
Or, at least without their protests or punishments.
It didn’t take long to find that out when sharp-eyed teachers began confiscating the devices, the director said.
“And a parent will call to ask for the vape back because it was theirs to begin with,” he said.
Just as often, he added, parents arriving at school after receiving a call can be just as uncooperative or belligerent as their children who have been caught.
Henkins wants the BOE to consider harsher punishments next year for any student caught vaping, including suspensions from school, balanced out with homework and time logged in an alternative learning environment.
Vaping is addictive and harmful – especially so, Henkins said, because the cartridges therein don’t always contain nicotine.
“You don’t know what kids are breathing in,” he said.
And the numbers of students caught vaping on school property, he said, don’t reflect the numbers of students using – who don’t get caught.
Last year, he said, 166 students were caught using vapes containing a nicotine product.
Eight students who fell ill using vapes were taken from school grounds to the hospital, Henkins said.
They either passed out or began feeling woozy.
BOE President Ron Lytle agreed, saying the district needs to breathe deeper in its approach to sanctions and punishments regarding the practice.
“We’re going to have to start thinking creatively,” he said.
Because schools are a microcosm of society, the threat of violence is also stepping up in the district, Henkins said.
Mon Schools, however, does have an in-house Safe and Supportive Schools committee which holds hearings for students being considered for a year-long expulsion.
Getting to that room means the student has violated the federal Safe Schools Act in some form, Henkins said.
Perhaps he brought a weapon to school or punched out a teacher.
Maybe he was caught threatening both.
Appearing before doesn’t automatically guarantee being booted from school, he said, but the numbers of students shuffling in to answer questions while their infractions are being catalogued have made for some steady inching upward.
Last year, 32 Mon students were referred to the committee, the Safe Schools director said.
There have been 48 such visits so far this year, he chronicled Tuesday night.
“And we still have two months to go.”
TWEET@DominionPostWV
