Alex Paul
Students at Sweet Home Junior High are being encouraged to “Talk It Up” every Tuesday through a new program designed to keep an anti-drug, healthy life style message before them on a regular basis.
Kristin Adams, prevention coordinator for the sixth through ninth grades, said the project is working in conjunction with the school’s WEB (Welcome Every Body) mentoring program.
“Our goal is to make school a better place,” Adams said. “We focus each month on the three big issues: alcohol, drugs and tobacco.”
Adams said that although some adults might not want to accept facts, statewide statistics indicate that 85 percent of junior high students had tried marijuana before the age of 13 and 37 percent had used alcohol in the previous 30 days. Some 82% of them had tried alcohol before age 13.
In Linn county, 25% of eighth graders had used alcohol and 13 percent had used marijuana.
A new school newsletter is also be sent to parents of junior high students with information on topics such as healthy decision making, character counts, diversity and respect.
“This month’s newsletter focuses on drug use,” Adams said. “We include information on tell tale signs that your child us using drugs, tips on how to talk to your child about drugs and how to tell your child to say no even if you used drugs at one time.”
Every Tuesday a “Talk It Up Tuesday” message is included with the daily announcements and on the third Tuesday of each month, teachers devote 20 minutes to talking about a specific healthy lifestyle topic with students.
“The students also get wrist bands with an informational note on them,” Adams said. “Every time a teacher or staff person talks with them about the note and its meaning, the students get a reward such as candy.”
Students who take the wrist bands home, discuss the message with their parent and return them with their parent’s initials, can enter the wrist band in a drawing for a prize valued at up to $50.
“Talk It Up Tuesday” was a big success the first month of school,” Adams said. “We had about 20 percent of the wrist bands returned and my goal is 50 percent.”
Students will also be able to write their anti-drug activity (such as sports or reading) on a sign attached to Mrs. Adams’ door for extra entries in the drawing.