Archive: News

With the new school year almost ready to begin Lansing school administrators are preparing to open the doors.  Part of the planning for this year is programming to address the illegal use of drugs in Lansing High School.  After several incidents last year parents approached then Principal Michelle Brantner about school-wide programs, especially to address misuse of prescription drugs.  It was too late in the school year to do that, but new Principal Eric Hartz is working with Superintendent Stephen Grimm to develop at least one program set for this November.

"We've made contact with some consultants that will come in the early part of November to talk with the high school staff," Grimm says.  "They'll come back again to talk to the entire student body, and their parents that night.  We're calling that piece 'Parent University.'"

Grimm says the idea is to present kids with a message during the day that is repeated in a different format for parents that same night.  He says that the program will apply across the board for grades 9 through 12.

Meanwhile, Hartz was asked to speak at a drug symposium in Ithaca last month to talk about what he has seen of pharmaceutical drug use in schools while he was principal at Groton High School.

"It was an interesting place to speak because I talked to a variety of different people," he says.  "They had a recovering drug addict, a counselor, and me.  There were three different views of what's out on the street right now, and on what's being used."

Last October students in every school district in the area took an anonymous youth development survey.  With anonymity assured, administrators hope it will yield frank information about drug use in Lansing and other area schools.  Grimm says this data will be used to formulate more responses to student drug use that he hopes will be more effective because of the student input.

But Grimm says the data is still being sifted through.  In the meanwhile school officials are working on the November program.

"We had some problems with suspensions for drug possession and use in school," he says.  "Some parents approached us to see what we could do for the following year.  This is one of the outcomes of that in combination with the youth survey information, which we have yet to bottle up for school board and public consumption."

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