Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Deputy sheriff Nancy Csabanyi tries on a pair of fatal-vision goggles which simulate a drunken state, including impaired vision and loss of motor skills. The goggles were available for students to try at the health fair on April 4.
SHS focuses on alcohol awareness before spring break and graduation
Students get a taste of grim realities
By Leigh Ann Maze
With spring break, prom and graduation just around the corner, school administrators and local law enforcement agencies hope to keep the season festive--by preventing alcohol-related tragedies.
This week, Saratoga High School participated in the countywide Sober Graduation Program on April 3, and also held a health fair on April 4.
During Sober Graduation, local police gave student journalists field sobriety tests, "arrested" and handcuffed them and took them to jail for drunken driving. At the jail, they fingerprinted students, photographed them and locked them behind bars.
The students also took a tour of the jail and heard a presentation by Maureen Little, a close friend of the Peckler family of Los Gatos. Three members of that family were killed by a drunken driver who is now serving a prison sentence for the deaths. Lastly, the students visited the Santa Clara County morgue.
Ironically, alcohol-related incidents involving Saratoga's youth are down compared to years past, according to statistics from the sheriff's office and a school drug survey.
Vice-principal Karen Hyde said that, although no level of alcohol use is acceptable to her, in her 20 years at the high school she does not believe there is currently an out-of-the-ordinary problem with alcohol. In fact, things are quieter than they used to be, she said.
"I remember doing stakeouts at [a local pizza place] because the kids used to drink there," Hyde said.
In 1999, the Sheriff's Office Westside Substation made six alcohol-related arrests of juveniles in Saratoga, said deputy Craig Sontra. In all six cases, the juvenile was driving a car and was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy. But there were no alcohol-related car accidents involving Saratoga juveniles that year. So far, there have been no such arrests or accidents in 2000, Sontra said.
According to sheriff's records at the Westside Substation that date back to 1983, there were no alcohol-related deaths among Saratoga juveniles.
"That's partly luck and partly the fact that kids aren't driving drunk," said Sgt. Ted Atlas. "It used to be more common to have kids involved in injury accidents. I'm sure the kids are still drinking, but you might say they are being more careful with their behavior and not getting into a car and driving." Atlas is a former school resource officer at the Westside Substation.
Atlas remembers responding to calls concerning youths partying in Saratoga in the late 1970s and through the 1980s more than monthly. "There would be 50 cars and 100 kids," he said. "It's really changed a lot."
Atlas credits the drop-off in the number of large parties and juvenile alcohol-related arrests to better alcohol awareness, which is bolstered by programs such as those happening this week at the high school. He credits the ability of school resource officers to go into classrooms and talk with students. He also credits a city ordinance passed in the early 1990s that has some teeth.
The ordinance makes it a misdemeanor for someone to host a social gathering where people under age 21 are drinking alcohol without parental supervision. The code also states that if police respond to a home because of a disturbance, such as a party, more than once, the homeowner will be billed for the time police spend dealing with it.
"We started getting the word out that if you are going to have a party these are the consequences, and the parties really started dropping off," Atlas said.
The results of a drug survey that SHS students took in 1997 say, "drug and alcohol use among Saratoga High School students are at unacceptably high levels. However, relative to national levels of usage, Saratoga High School students are less likely to abuse alcohol and drugs."
In the survey, 53 percent of Saratoga High School seniors reported they had "been drunk" compared to a national average of 62 percent. The survey also showed that 29 percent of them said they had "been drunk in the last month" compared to 31 percent of seniors nationally.
Compared to results of the same test students took in the 1990-1991 school year, alcohol use was down although it was still the most commonly used drug.
Although the statistics are lower than they have been in the past, many law enforcement officers, including Ron Breuss, the school Safety Resource Officer at the substation say alcohol is the drug of choice among local high school students,. While the trends in alcohol use among Saratoga's youth have changed over time, alcohol is still present, he said.
But Breuss does not rely solely on statistics, which he says do not tell the complete story. He also pays close attention to the confidential information the students give him.
"It all comes down to the health and safety of the kids," Breuss said. "Even though I can't prove through statistics that there might be a problem, I'm not waiting until we get a body in the morgue."
Breuss participated in the Sober Graduation Program, which will give a $1,000 grant to the student newspaper that publishes the best overall coverage of the event. Breuss also attended the high school's health fair with the fatal vision goggles he recently purchased. The goggles simulate the effects of being drunk when worn and will be used to educate students in local schools about drugs and alcohol.
According to Breuss, alcohol awareness goes deeper than education at school. "It's a bigger issue than telling kids not to drink--it starts at home," he said. "The parents have to set the tone here."
Breuss and school administrators hope that this week's alcohol awareness programs will bring a sober dose of reality to local high schools, so that students will celebrate this festive time of the school year, however they choose to do so, safely.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
