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THE PROBLEM ISN'T YEARBOOKS; IT'S DRUG USE

By now everyone has heard about the brouhaha over the Conifer High School yearbook and the pages that depict students using alcohol and illegal drugs.  Some parents are up in arms, even going so far to as to demand the resignation of Amy McTague, an English teacher and yearbook adviser. 

Those parents need to calm down and hear what principal Pat Termin said in a High Timber Times article.  After admitting that the material was indefensible and should not have been included in the year book, she asked: "When are we going to leave the yearbook behind and go to the conversations that really need to happen about helping more kids make better choices?"

A study done several years ago showed that 25 to 28 percent of 10th-graders at Conifer used marijuana and/or alcohol.  For upperclassmen, I wouldn't be surprised to find that figure to be higher, nor would I be surprised to find far higher levels of drug use in other schools. 

To my way of thinking, the students who produced the yearbook and those who were quoted about the use of drugs and alcohol didn't think twice about the matter.  That alone speaks volumes about the use of drugs and alcohol in Conifer High School, and I can tell you, that fine school is not the exception.  It is the rule. 

The fact that kids are using dangerous drugs like alcohol and cigarettes is of far more concern than a few kids depicting it in a yearbook. 

But in one sense, this is not a school issue as much as it's a parent issue.  It's easy to fix an oversight in a yearbook.  ( A list of solutions was offered by the school.  ) It's not so easy to get kids to change their ways.  But I know this: We parents frequently count on the schools to fix problems with our kids that we cannot or will not fix, so chances are that it will fall into the school's lap.  Nonetheless, it will take schools and parents working together to make even a whit of a difference. 

McTague and Termin have apologized enough.  Now is the time to attack the real problem and it's not about yearbooks.