NHS Students Plan Town Hall Meeting To Raise Awareness About Underage Drinking

By Martha Coville

“The name the students choose for the April 9 town hall meeting was a little controversial,” said Judy Blanchard. Ms Blanchard supervises Newtown High School’s chapter of Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD). Students are calling the event Bring Youth On Board and have papered NHS with fliers reading “BYOB.”

SADD is planning a town hall meeting at the Alexandria Room in Edmond Town Hall, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm, to spread awareness of the level of underage drinking at NHS. Newtown students, teachers and especially parents are invited. The program is one of 38 town hall meetings in Connecticut communities and 1,500 across the country spearheaded by the Federal government’s Interagency Coordinating Committee for the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD), chaired by Dr Terry Cline, administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Ms Blanchard said, “The students had to defend the BYOB name to us. They said they thought the ‘BYOB’ would catch attention.”

The evening, which will include testimony from a panel of students and community members, testimonials about NHS students’ experiences with alcohol, and small workshops for parents, students, and other community members, was organized entirely by NHS students. “Youth-led initiatives are more effective among students than those led by adults,” said Ms Blanchard.

Seniors Allison Jagoe and Tina Sanchez are SADD co-presidents. Allison descried the program enthusiastically. “We’re hoping to have a lot of different members of the community, parents, teachers, students, district administrators, and Board of Education members all in one place with the one goal of spreading awareness of the danger of underage drinking,” Allison said, adding, “We will have student-led workshops with town members, teachers, and students. We want everyone to brainstorm concrete ideas to help stop underage drinking.”

“We’re also going to have a panel,” she said. “Tina and I are going to be student representatives on the panel. Newtown Police Chief Michael Kehoe and Bill Beggs, an emergency room physician from Danbury Hospital, will also be there, as will Jason Hiruo, a vice principal at NHS, and parent representatives Debbie Miller and Michelle Vontobel.”

Allison said, “The purpose of having that panel is that we want to inspire discussion, so that students, and parents and teachers, can ask questions, and so we can unite in the school.

“I think the biggest part of it is that it’s student-led,” said Allison. “Members of SADD will be sharing testimonials of students here at the high school. Anonymous testimonials, so that we can get a realistic perspective of what students are doing.” She said that SADD students went into high school classrooms and asked students to write about their experiences with alcohol, and the consequences associated with underage drinking. Their experiences will be read without revealing their names.

A light meal, prepared by students in the NHS culinary arts class, will be served.

Ms Blanchard said, “We want to end the program with a discussion of what is everyone willing to do stop underage drinking.”

Other SADD members said their goal is to create a communitywide discussion. Junior Jen Brewer said, “I hope that people from the community, people who don’t have children, will come out because this is a community issue.” Fellow junior Dan Quinn said, “Hopefully, we’ll get more high school students to go.” And Devon Ferris, also a junior, said, “This is a really big problem in our school. We just want to give teenagers multiple opinions about underage drinking.”

During their discussion with The Bee, SADD students noted that although underage drinking remains common, cigarette smoking among students has decreased dramatically. Ms Blanchard creates this to the consistency of the message students receive about smoking from their parents. Students who are told not to smoke, and who see that their parents do not smoke, are much less likely to do it themselves. “We’re trying to do the same thing for alcohol,” said junior Harrison Gillis.