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METH IN THE CLASSROOM

Principals Say Children Of Users, Producers Often Hardest Hit

The impact of methamphetamine on Lebanon's schools may not be readily visible or even easily measurable, but it still presents a set of frustrating problems to those charged with teaching and protecting students.

This week, administrators and principals from each Lebanon R-3 school building sat down with The Daily Record to discuss how they believe meth affects students' lives.

While educators say they don't believe meth use is widespread among students or their families, they freely admit they can't pin down exactly how it impacts schools.  That's because even when a teacher or principal suspects a student may be having trouble because of meth -- either because the student is using the drug themselves or, more commonly, that meth is being used in the home -- without some sort of proof, there is very little that school personnel can do.

"We are an educational entity -- we are about teaching and learning, and all these other things come to us and sit on our doorstep, and we are limited in what we can do," Assistant Superintendent Susan Gauzy said.  "We're limited by confidentiality, we're limited by our resources as far as supporting families.  We're doing everything we know to do, and the frustration is that we always can't do more, but we don't go home with the kids -- we can't.  We can't control what goes on in the community, and we can't control what goes on in the workplace.  ...

"We can talk about the increased dysfunctions we see in families, but we can't directly attribute those dysfunctions to meth use.  We just don't have the connection to do it.  Would it be our suspicion? It could be a piece of it, but we can't say it's an absolute.  I wish we could."

R-3 Assistant Superintendent Chris Neale said educators often don't know whether meth is a factor in a student's life until after an incident has taken place.

"Here's the trouble: When we know it's a meth problem, either a kid was busted with it and we know they're in possession of it, or a parent admits after the fact that they are in treatment," Neale said.  "That's the only time we really know it's meth.  We can talk about our suspicions or our impressions.  We know that there are instabilities in students' lives, and it's logical to say that sometimes meth might be connected with that.  But we rarely get to see that -- the other side of the picture -- to really spot the stuff."

Heartbreaking

Sadly, one aspect of meth that often is seen by educators is the impact it has on some of the district's youngest students, especially the children of those who use or produce the drug.

Esther Elementary Principal Kyle Walker, whose school serves students in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first grade, said it's not uncommon to see children of meth users shuffled between caregivers.

"We'll have a parent come in and make arrangements for a child -- that they're going to stay with grandma and grandpa while ( the parent ) goes into rehab..." Walker said.

"In the elementary, one of the things we see sometimes are the effects right after it's happened.  It's not uncommon for us in the morning after a drug bust or if there's one that afternoon, to see, once again, grandma, grandpa or an aunt or somebody is sitting with a child, and they've come to pick the kids up because the kids are going to be staying with them until mom or dad gets out of jail.

"In cases like that, the kids are just a mess.  They don't know where they're going to be from night to night, they don't know what's going to happen to their parent.  They just have all types of emotional problems, and ...  those problems can translate themselves into a lack of learning or behavior problems."

Walker said that there often is a direct correlation between parents who use meth and problems their children face at school.

"Many times -- not all the time -- but many times those will be the same kids who have had all kinds of problems in the classroom: They're very distractible, inattentive, they have behavior problems or are very emotionally fragile -- all that type of stuff.  In cases like that, you can directly relate it to meth use," Walker said.

Maplecrest Elementary Principal Cindy Campbell, whose school serves second- and third-grade students, agrees.

"I think the most serious problem we have is the displacement of those kids, whether that's happening in the middle of the night after a drug bust, or it's a grandparent bringing the child to school and explaining the issue, or parents going off to rehab and being away from the children for an extended period of time," Campbell said.

That displacement isn't only confined to younger students, according to Matt Searson, who is the assistant principal at Lebanon Junior High School.

"It's just the uncertainty it creates for the kids," Searson said.  "We just figure out who the kids are staying with and some guardianship issues.  We do notice a lot of that, and we do try to work on that with the kids."

R-3 Director of Special Services Lori Sallee, said that many times, students in homes where meth or other drugs are being used want to confide in teachers, principals or social workers.  Sometimes that doesn't happen, however, because school officials are required by law to notify authorities when they have reason to believe a crime has taken place, including drug use.

"One thing that we do see is students wanting to tell us what's going on in their homes," Sallee said.  "That's one thing, when I talk to our social workers, that they're seeing.  We refer that to the appropriate agency.  It's a mandated report to a hotline, to the police or the sheriff if it's a county issue."

Campbell said that system is in place to protect students.

"As mandated reporters, if we feel like a child's safety is in danger, we're going to hotline that," she said.  "A lot of times, that's all we have when a student comes to us and talks to us about what's going on at home, or we see by the evidence how they come to school, that something isn't right in the home -- and that's the best we can do for that child."

Talking the talk

Gauzy said that over the past few years, administrators have actively monitored students who they believe are affected by meth use or other forms of drug use.  She said district personnel also have studied a number of telltale words and phrases that are used among meth users in order to determine whether students are in homes where the drug is being used or made.  Campbell and Walker both say students whose parents use the drug have a certain "drug vocabulary."

"They are more knowledgeable than your average student," Campbell said.

Even so, Walker said that younger children may not understand the significance of the terms, or why a parent may get into trouble if a drug bust takes place.

"We have several of the kids that have a drug vocabulary, in that they come and talk about mom and dad doing something," Walker said.  "They are using terms in describing things that they are doing at home.  They come to school, and I guess they just assume that all the other kids' moms and dads have coffee cans where they are boiling these chemicals and things.  ...

"The kids that I deal with, I still don't know that they have an understanding that mom and dad are doing something that's really bad.  It's just that 'mom and dad do this, and they've gotten in trouble with the police because of it.' When they get a little older, it may be a case where they realize mom and dad are doing these things and that are wrong.  But at my level, they haven't put those two things together."

Other signs of possible drug use in the home revolve around the health, appearance and preparedness of students when they come to school.  Principals say signs of neglect are not enough by themselves to definitely indicate drug use in a household, but they say that the needs of children have increased dramatically over the past decade, the same period of that meth production has spiked here.

"We can't say exactly why they need that support, necessarily, but it seems like the kids that need that support need a lot more than what we've seen in the past," Boswell Elementary Principal T.C.  Wall said.  "The extremes are becoming more and more obvious.  There are kids coming to school that are very well prepared, very well taken care of, where families are involved and they engage in lots of activities.  And then you have children that come to school that are not very well cared for.  It's obvious in their dress, in their nutrition, hygiene, in the way they function at school, all those things.  ...  That is increasing, I think."

Walker points out that while the needs of students are increasing, school officials are dealing with relatively the same number of students they did a decade ago.

"You might have the same numbers of kids that you did 10 years ago, but the needs are so much greater than they were in the past," Walker said.  "We have two school-based social workers right now, and we could probably use two more.  A lot of what they're doing is going into the homes and trying to provide some basis of order for these families, and many of these families are in crisis.

"You may have seen articles that have been coming out as far as children that have real severe learning problems.  You might still have 5 percent of the kids that need help.  When I first started teaching, the worst you would see is maybe the kids weren't coming to school or they weren't very clean.  Now, you're talking about kids that are living in homes that are producing meth, who may have physical problems, medical problems, and because of that they may have learning problems.  It's just a whole different world."

Drugs on campus

Despite the increased attention methamphetamine has received of late, incidents of drugs being found on R-3 campuses actually have dropped over the past year, according to administrators.

Lebanon Junior High School Principal Pat Bauer said Thursday that the school has had no drug incidents so far this year, and had only three incidents last year.

"It's very rare to find something like that at the junior high, and when we do find it, it's almost always a look-alike: something over-the-counter that the kids bring in from home," Bauer said.  "I think last year, we had three cases where we had to suspend students for having drugs.  Two of the three were for over-the-counter drugs, and the other one was not meth-related -- it was marijuana.  We've been fortunate this year, up to this point."

Lebanon High School also has been free of drug-related incidents so far this year, but Principal Robert Smith knows that does not mean students aren't using drugs.

"We haven't had a single drug-possession-related case this school year.  But the number of incidents in which students come to school after they've already used -- I can't say it's up, but it's still a trend," Smith said.

Smith took a number of steps last year to help maintain discipline and improve academic performance, including the elimination of most open-block classes for upper-level students.  When asked, he said he also hopes the steps have decreased students' access to drugs at school.

"I hope it's helped," he said.  "In an ideal world, we would be able to keep our kids from ever using drugs.  In the world we live in, I would just like to keep the drugs off campus."

Like his elementary counterparts, Smith often is faced with suspecting - -- but not being able to prove -- that meth is affecting certain students.

"You have a suspicion that there's meth in their lives, but you don't know if it's them or their parents or a sibling," he said.  "There definitely is more of an awareness about a kid with methamphetamine than there used to be about kids with marijuana.

"You can see there are kids who -- once again, these aren't necessarily kids that we know have used drugs -- but they're hanging out with either adults or students that have been arrested for methamphetamine.  They're skin looks different, they're pale and don't look as healthy, their hair and eyes look different, they lose weight, their clothes hang off of them differently.  It affects kids who have a very low family income, and it affects middle-class and upper-middle-class kids all the same.

"There's not a whole lot you can do in a position like that.  You can't be in a position to accuse someone of doing something without proof.  So, you just try to be supportive, you try to be helpful.  Sometimes you look for openings or chances to talk to them on a more real or personal level.  We have to try and make sure that they realize they can get help if they need help, whether it be because a family member's involved or because they, themselves are involved."

Another campus where drugs have not been a problem is the Lebanon Alternative Education Center.  Students at the center, which gives them an opportunity to learn job skills and earn money through the adjoining Human Resources Development Center, generally want to be a part of the program, according to its director, Michael Postlewait.  Postlewait said that getting caught with any type of banned substance on campus is a quick ticket out of the program.

"Is it a problem at school? I don't think so," Postlewaite said when asked about meth.  "It's not a campus problem, and I haven't had a single incident this year.  But is it there? Honestly -- probably.

"We basically have a zero-tolerance policy for students, since it is an elective program.  Any substance abuse, whether it be drugs or alcohol or whatever, can result in a student being transferred back to the high school.  If that's a deterrent to keep them from coming to school with it, then that's a great policy.  And, as I've said, we haven't had any problems with that.

"At the same time, students do a lot of talking.  I think that's something everyone is aware of.  If someone says 'I have a suspicion' there has to be some follow-through in checking into that.  I'm mandated to do that.  Still, I don't want to falsely look at somebody and get into the legalities of that as well.  It's a very serious situation, and very difficult set of circumstances we get put into sometimes."

Drug treatment facility

One idea that has been mentioned in the community's ongoing discussion of meth, is the establish a drug-treatment facility here.

Educators say that, while they believe the community as a whole will have to decide whether a treatment facility is an appropriate solution, they also see potential benefits for students, especially for the children of meth users and producers.

"The kids are subjected to all this stuff, and we have all these support services for the kids.  But the real problem is the parents using the meth, and we just don't have the services for them," Walker said.  "So, until something happens where you can provide the services or cut down on that meth use, our elementary kids are going to continue to have the very same problems.  Once again, that kind of trickle-down theory is that if it's going to help the parents, it's going to help the kids."

Gauzy said she could see no drawbacks to having such a facility available.

"A treatment center in our area could only be good.  What would be the downside to that?" she said.  "I think that could only be a positive for us.  So, if the community could figure out a way to provide services to families -- for rehab and treatment close to home -- I think it would be a wonderful opportunity for us."

Neale said he believed such a facility would complement other services already in place.

"It seems, out in the community, that's the disconnect," he said.  "We have a jail that has a program within it to help meth or any other kind of addict recover, we have a private group that has started up a stepping stone -- a halfway house -- for folks who are trying to get between the jail and back to real life.  So, the thing we don't have is a treatment center, which would be a beautiful addition to help those folks."

Like many residents, the increase in the number of incidents of methamphetamine use in the community over the past few years concerns school officials, but they are also appreciative of the public attention the subject has received, and the apparent willingness of residents to discuss and work toward some type of solution.

"You know, we're scared.  It frightens us.  It's frightens us about what it's going to do to our students.  I think that's the bottom line ..." Gauzy said when asked to sum up educators' feelings about meth.  "We really appreciate the community looking at how serious the problem is, because it is a big deal for us."

Neale said that although methamphetamine does present several challenges to Lebanon and Laclede County, he believes residents will come up with effective solutions.  In the mean time, he said school officials will continue to do their best to do what they can to help students affected by meth, and remain vigilant to keep drugs away from R-3 campuses.

"It's a 24/7 thing, and it will be a community solution that comes out of it," Neale said.  "I'm confident of that."