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A New
By Ron Schachter
Raising student awareness about the consequences of prescription drugs has taken on a new urgency.
mostly Cs, while 41 percent registered Ds and Fs. Last fall, the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) started distributing Smart Moves, Smart Choices, a comprehensive school toolkit designed to prevent prescription drug abuse and featuring noted authority Drew Pinsky in a series of video segments. It was a data-driven decision, says NASNs director of government affairs, Mary Louise Embrey, of the new initiative. Every day, 2,500 young people abuse prescription drugs for the first time. The National Education Associations (NEA) Health Information Network is creating an anti-prescription-drugabuse curriculum that its framers promise will adhere to the National Health Education Standards and to the Common Core State Standards. The curriculum is scheduled for release at the NEAs national conference in July. Some school districts, meanwhile, have taken prescription drug education into their own handsthe result, say their leaders, of growing abuse in their communities and fatalities in their schools. A New Epidemic The creators of the new programs say its no surprise that the teenage abuse of prescription drugs has reached epidemic proportions. Besides the unprecedented abundance of such drugs, many teens think these substances are perfectly legal
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Middle school students in the Chewalah and Valley School Districts in Washington learn from Jim Tilla, president of an anti-drug organization, about the need for prescription monitoring programs to avoid obtaining fraudulent prescription medications.
and safe. They dont necessarily have the maturity level to understand that a drug even if it comes from a doctormay not be safe if it isnt used as prescribed, Embrey explains. In the teenage mind, theres the perception that (abusing) the drug is not illegal because it comes from a doctor. Most kids would never consider doing heroin, adds Lisa Roberts, co-founder of the Scioto County Prescription Drug Abuse Task Force in southeastern Ohio, which has provided funding for surrounding school districts to create new programs. A lot would consider taking a pill because it came from a doctor and must be safe. But the reality is that OxyContin and hydrocodone (the generic form of OxyContin) will addict you. I know tons of kids who became addicted that way. It doesnt help that some popular institutions take the misuse of prescription drugs lightly, adds Pamela Bennett, executive director of healthcare alliance development at the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, which developed the
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widely distributed pain killer OxyContin and is funding the new NEA curriculum. There are symbols in our culture that make this [kind of drug abuse] appear to be more of a social norm than using methamphetamines and heroin, she observes. Bennett recalls an episode of the television series Will and Grace in which one character kept a party bowl of prescription drugs, and she also notes that rapper Eminem wears a tattoo spelling out Vicodin, another powerful painkiller to which the singer was once addicted. What complicates matters, adds Bennett and other advocates for prescription drug education, is that parentsoften without knowing ithave become the dealers of prescription drugs simply by leaving them unguarded in the medicine cabinet. Most of the new anti-abuse programs include components to raise parental awareness and to promote the proper disposal of any unused medications. More than a decade ago, a study of 11to 18-year-old students with ADHD in Wisconsin and Minnesota revealed that 34
percent reported being approached to sell or trade their medicines, such as Ritalin. Since then, reports the National Institute of Mental Health, the number of youngsters and teens with prescription medications for ADHD has risen by more than 500,000, raising the specter of even more illicit sharing and selling. Smart Moves, Smart Choices The National Association of School Nurses made a splash last October when it released Smart Moves, Smart Choices, which contains everything from guidelines on running school assemblies and finding local speakers to a flier that can be sent home to parents. The flier covers the statistics and risks of prescription drug abuse among teens, identifies the most commonly abused medications, and offers steps for securing such drugs at home and recognizing signs of abuse in children. Colorful posters from the kit present snappy slogans such as Small things can be deadly, along with pictures of an overturned bottle of pills next to a taranDistrict Administration
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Last fall, the National Association of School Nurses started distributing Smart Moves, Smart Choices, a comprehensive school toolkit designed to prevent prescription drug abuse and featured noted authority Dr. Drew Pinsky in a series of video segments.
school nurse is a perfect place to goyour teachers, guidance counselors, even your friends parents. ere is help. You could save your friends life. He has the star power of a wellknown professional in the world of substance abuse, says Embrey. I was at the assembly where we lmed the videos, and Ive never seen students so attentive. ey were hanging on every word. Embrey also points to the ve video segments created with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and included in Smart Moves, Smart Choices. ese videos cover areas such as the science of addiction, myths about prescription drug abuseincluding the belief that these drugs are harmless and that abusers are
the prescription drug message over the school year by running individual videos during her schools morning announcements, which are broadcast through video monitors in each classroom. I love how the snippets are less than ve minutes each, Smith notes. And there are not many programs that focus on prescription drugs. Smith hopes that the parental piece will have more success than past drug education initiatives. Ive had an auditorium reserved for 600 people and had fewer than 10 show up, she recalls. eres a not my kid mentality. When I call home suspecting a kid of using drugs, the parents deny it. If I oer them a free drug-testing kit, they dont come in to pick it up.
tion drug abuse and the choices individuals can make, for instance, would align with that reading standard. e curriculum would also cover health education objectives from identifying personal behaviors that cause health risks to assisting others in avoiding such risks. Teachers can drop it into the curriculum and it will help them meet their standards, adds National Education Association President Jerald Newberry. Howley says that the new curriculum, due out in July, focuses on grades 6-8 and will consist of life skills units that not only cover the abuse of prescription drugs but that teach students such lessons as not to take leftover medications for a future illness without a physicians guidance.
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State Assessment
Lewis, Carol
Grade: 7 ID: LK4327 Teacher: Gonzalez, V. Class: Math Fundamentals G7
Pathway to Proficiency
950
900
850
STAR Math Scaled Score
800
750
700
650
600 Sep-10 Oct-10 Nov-10 Dec-10 Jan-11 Feb-11 Mar-11 Apr-11 May-11 Jun-11
SMA information was last updated on 7/29/2010. State assessments are subject to change. For guidance interpreting data when state tests change, see Interpreting Performance Reports under STAR resources.
Introducing STAR Enterpriseour new generation of reading and math assessments. With new tools, content, and reports, teachers can quickly get needed data to drive daily instruction and practice. Fast, accurate, and easy to administer, STAR Enterprise assessments include Core Progress learning progressions aligned to the Common Core State Standards to help you ensure all of your students are on a path to success.
the case of Smart Moves, Smart Choices and Purdue Pharma for the forthcoming NEA materials. Lessons From Experience Some districts that have come face-to-face with prescription drug abuse and its consequences have embarked on prevention programs of their own. Mark Selle, the superintendent of the Chewalah and Valley School Districts in rural eastern Washington state, has witnessed no shortage of tragedies. In one case, a 12-year-old brought hydrocodone tablets to a slumber party. In another case, a 21-year-old former student died after smoking the contents of a Fentanyl patch, originally prescribed for pain management. And an eighth-grader had died from a methadone overdose. Kids were dying, suddenly, and so young, Selle says. I knew a principal who had OxyContin prescribed after a skiing accident and became addicted. He stopped cold turkey but described to me the hell it was to break the addiction. In our little town of Chewalah, drugstores were getting held up all the time,
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Kron recalls the Tillas first presentation at the Valley Elementary and Middle School four years ago. A lot of kids had the attitude, That wont happen to me. When the Tillas told their story, you could probably hear a pin drop. It was affecting a fourth-grade teacher whom these students knew. Selle and other school leaders were active in advocating for a statewide prescription monitoring program, a shared database for pharmacies that keeps track of anyone receiving a prescription and prevents abusers from pharmacy hopping to get multiple prescriptions filled. The program started collecting data from pharmacies around the state last October. Its essential that the schools be involved, Selle insists. In terms of advocating for legislation, the voice of school personnel speaks loudly. We have the stories, and the more kids we can get speaking out the better. Last year in the Appalachian community of Lucasville in southeastern Ohio, the Valley Local School District implemented a 30-minute bimonthly period at the Valley
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