Alcohol grant targets student drinking
Do local middle schools have a drinking problem on their hands? Students, guidance counselors, and community service workers all say, “Probably not.” And Rockbridge Area Community Services (RACS) intends to keep it that way.
The local organization received a grant last month to fund a new prevention program in area middle schools.
The $300 grant from the U.S. Department of Health is the latest effort by RACS to educate the county’s youth about the harmful effects of alcohol. The organization received the grant last month as part of the Reach Out Now National Teach-In, a national program that provides materials on underage drinking to fifth- and sixth-grade teachers.
A 2005 survey conducted by the Governor’s Office for Substance Abuse Prevention found that about 7 percent of eighth-graders in Rockbridge County reported having had five or more drinks in one day. The survey also found that about 20 percent of eighth-graders here reported having had more than just a sip of alcohol.
“As a prevention person, it concerns me that youth are using substances at such a young age,” said Kelly Shifflett, RACS’ director of prevention and public relations. “But it is not unduly alarming. Our statistics are comparable to [those in other regions].”
The grant money will go toward bringing a local community leader into the classroom to talk to students about underage drinking, said LauraJane Wilson, RACS coalition prevention facilitator. She said she has not yet finalized who will give the talk or which of the area’s middle schools – Lylburn Downing in Lexington, Parry McCluer in Buena Vista and Maury River and Rockbridge in the county – will participate.
The grant also provides materials including in-class activities, lessons and a take-home section aimed at helping parents discuss alcohol use with their children.
“That age group is tough,” said Wilson. “That’s why Reach Out Now is aimed at middle schoolers and we want a prominent person to come in. It’s because students seem to respect that a little more than just the regular old teachers they have coming in through the years …. If you get somebody prominent that everybody looks up to, it works out really well.”
Wilson also said that she wished the organization had a more recent survey.
“I know that some kids drink,” she said. “But I know it’s not rampant.”
Getting feedback from the students she sees in the middle schools, she said, “I really do anticipate the numbers going down.” Another survey is planned for the fall, she said.
Sarah Blackburn, Lylburn Downing’s guidance counselor, doesn’t dismiss the issue.
“I think drinking is a potential issue at all middle schools,” she said, “but I don’t know of any students here who are drinking.”
Reach Out Now overlaps with RACS’ “Too Good For Drugs” program, already in place in local middle schools. RACS also distributes “The Toilet Paper,” a fact sheet about drinking, displayed in the schools’ bathroom stalls.
“It’s in a place [students] just can’t miss it,” Wilson said.
But not all middle school students take the fact sheet seriously.
“A lot of kids flip the things upside down as a joke. It’s not really something you pay attention to all that much,” said Lucas Bergmann, a seventh-grader at Lylburn Downing.
Bergmann said that there are opportunities to drink, but that he doubts any of his peers use alcohol to get drunk.
"I'd rather have Pepsi. It tastes better," he said.
Lylburn Downing seventh-grader Pearl Wapner also said that she and her friends don’t know anyone who has been drunk. She said that she has had wine during a religious holiday, while Bergmann said he has had a sip of beer on New Year’s Eve.
RACS, which was established by the state to provide community mental health and drug prevention services, covers Rockbridge County, Bath County, Lexington and Buena Vista. The Reach Out Now program that RACS will be using is sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Scholastic Inc.
Wilson said she remains realistic about her attempts to reach students at an age when they are learning to question what they’re taught. She is the mother of three, two of them currently in middle school. But she also thinks the schools and programs such as those RACS provides are getting their message across.
“Just from my own kids,” she said, “I know that if I have a glass of wine with dinner, my daughter will say, ‘Mom, that’s not good for you.”
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