Troubling sign of the times. The following letter sent to all GHS parents from headmaster speaks for itself:
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Over the past few months, there has been a spike in the number of students being arrested for possession of marijuana and possession with the intent to sell both on school grounds and throughout the community. We are not sure if the increase in the number of arrests is a result of increased marijuana use by our students or the result of better surveillance and enforcement by our security and the Greenwich Police. Regardless, the situation is not acceptable.
Substance abuse and risky behaviors are problems that exist beyond Greenwich High School. They are community-wide issues that will only be addressed effectively with a community-wide response from parents, schools – public and private – Town agencies and departments (Police, Social Services, etc.), religious and community organizations, and the students themselves. The District hopes to engage the collective community in a discussion about and action towards addressing these issues.
Greenwich High School has a zero tolerance policy for drug possession or drug use on campus. The intent of this letter is to inform you of additional steps we will be taking to enforce our zero tolerance policy and to educate our students about the dangers and consequences of drug use. Our ultimate goal is to educate students to make healthy and safe choices regarding illicit substances and to ensure that these substances are not brought onto the GHS campus.
On the enforcement side, we are working in partnership with the Greenwich Police to bring the canine unit onto campus. The Greenwich Police have a State of Connecticut certified canine. The dog can detect any illicit drug. We will use the dog to sniff cars in the parking lot. If the canine detects an illegal substance in the vehicle, the student who drove the vehicle onto GHS property will be subject to a search of his/her person and belongings by a GHS administrator. Parents/guardians should be aware that the person to whom a car is registered is liable for anything in that car, even if their child is the primary user of the car. We will use the canine to sniff lockers and any other locations we believe may have been used to hide drugs. We will continue to use the dog in random searches for the remainder of the year.
Alongside this stepped up enforcement, we are planning additional education for our students about the dangers and health implications of drug use. Each grade will have an assembly where Greenwich Police and GHS educators will help students understand the potential implications of drug use and of bringing drugs on campus. We will use these assemblies to highlight other risky behavior that some students engage in: sexting (the practice of sending sexually explicit pictures of oneself or others via cell phones), bullying, date violence, and alcohol consumption.
GREENWICH HIGH SCHOOL
Please know that our ultimate intent is to deter students from engaging in high risk behavior. Our Vision of the Graduate calls for students who “conduct themselves in an ethical and responsible manner,” and who are “responsible for their own mental and physical health.” We will work with you, the parents or guardians, the students and other partners to ensure that GHS is as free of illicit drugs as possible.
Sincerely,
Chris Winters
Headmaster
Insane. Not only is every inch of the campus, both inside and out, survielled by a closed circuit television system that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for the PTA to install, not only is the school patrolled full-time by an armed police officer equipped with a Taser which he has used on a student in the past, but now police dogs are being used to patrol the campus. That is an absolute disgrace.
When our first child started as a freshman at GHS in 2003, then-headmistress Elaine Bessette held a meeting for parents at which one parent asked her if GHS had a drug problem. Ms. Bessette thought for a moment and then replied, “Greenwich High School’s situation with drugs is probably no different than that in any other suburban high school in America. But we have a drinking problem.”
If one drives past the high school either in the morning or afternoon one will invariably see some students smoking cigarettes. While smoking marijuana will not seriously harm one, smoking tobacco, over a period of years, will likely kill you. Over half a million Americans die of smoking-related diseases every year. Indeed, some states are legalizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes. But Headmaster Winters is bringing in police dogs to find and arrest students who might use it? That is overkill, totally unnecessary and downright shameful.
In his book “High Society”, Joseph Califano, chairman of the National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse, pointed out that there are more teenagers in rehabilitation for alcohol abuse than for all other illicit drugs combined. Alcohol abuse is also far more harmful physically than is marijuana. But the school and the town police are making serious efforts to arrest and prosecute those students using a drug that is relatively harmless. And at significant expense to the taxpayers.
Headmaster Winters should not be attempting to keep the community in the dark about the numbers of students arrested who are seeing their futures destroyed by this drug crackdown. The figures are not only available to the public, but the school and the school board should be publishing those figures on a regular basis. That is particularly important because arrests at Greenwich High School have been out of control for years.
According to Greenwich Police Department data, over the past five full school years 104 arrests have been made at the high school. That figure is equivalent to roughly 2% of all the students who attended Greenwich High School during those years. For a town that is one of the very safest in the entire country with one of the very lowest rates of violent crime, and with a crime rate that has been falling for years, it is insane that the police are making so many arrests. And now to hear that the school is seeing a spike in arrests suggests that the town police are out of control.
Let’s see, we can’t afford to pay the test fees for Advanced Placement exams for our best and hardest-working students, we can’t find the money to build a decent auditorium for that school, we operate the second biggest high school in the entire state because the town refuses to spend the money to build a second high school. Our school has fallen hundreds of places over the past five years in the Newsweek rankings, and we are no longer ranked by US News & World Reports. Our town’s economically disadvantaged students perform worse than those in any other DRG B school in the state. But we have unlimited amounts of cash to use for police patrols, closed-circuit surveillance systems, and drug-sniffing police dogs to roam the halls.
That’s a disgrace.
Comment by Sean — January 23rd, 2010 @ 6:47 pm
BRAVO!! Mr. Winters,
Kids need to know what the rules and consequences are. Many parents don’t seem to get that now a days. I am not a grower, seller or user of marijuana but my feeling is that the present laws that make it illegal are as foolish as the ones that tried to control alcohol during prohibition in the 1920’s. All they do is make criminals rich and waste the money we spend on enforcement. It would be better to get a little tax money on the billions spent on it.
That said neither alcohol or illicit drugs have a place in our schools.
Comment by Idaho — January 23rd, 2010 @ 11:00 pm
In fact, just over a year ago, our neighboring New England state to our north, Massachusetts, passed a ballot initiative by an overwhelming margin of nearly two-to-one that decriminalized the possession of up to a dozen marijuana cigarettes. And here at home the Connecticut Law Revision Commission in 1997, according to this entry in Wikipedia, “examined states that had decriminalized cannabis and found any increase in cannabis usage was less than the increase in states that have not decriminalized cannabis; furthermore, the commission stated “the largest proportionate increase [of cannabis use] occurred in those states with the most severe penalties.” The study recommended Connecticut reduce cannabis possession of 28.35 grams (one ounce) or less for adults age 21 and over to a civil fine.[52]”
Headmaster Winters is woefully behind the times and his wrong-headed policy on drugs is hurting our youth.
Comment by Sean — January 24th, 2010 @ 10:56 am