Violence, Vandalism, and Substance Abuse in HS District Stays Stable, Sampson Reports

Freehold Regional High School District Superintendent Charles Sampson  presented the semi-annual "Violence, Vandalism & Substance Abuse" report at the Board of Education meeting on Monday, Nov. 28.

This report is required by New Jersey state law and is preliminary; all public school districts must report the statistics of violence, vandalism and substance abuse from the previous school year before Jan. 1. A fully vetted, and more detailed report will be presented in the spring. The spring report also includes more information on how to mitigate these problems, the superintendent said.

Sampson said that New Jersey's new Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying policy has required the public school districts to be more rigorous in reporting incidents of bad behavior.

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"Over the past three years our incidents of violence, vandalism, and substance abuse have remained relatively stable," Sampson said.

The superintencent warned that incidents of violence will most likely increase over the next few years do to the new strict regulations of the new HIB policy, which went into effect on Sept. 1 of this year.

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Sampson said that the seven incidents of damage to property reported last year were not bad enough to require compensation from the individual who caused the damage.The damage mainly was the writing of biased remarks on walls or desks, according to Sampson, and the one bomb threat from last year was also written onto a desk.

Sampson said that weapons are characterized as any object that "might be lethal in nature". Of the three assaults with a weapon last year, two involved pins and the third assault involved a pair of scissors. The students who were wearing pins jabbed another student with the tack of the pin and a student grabbed a pair of scissors in class and used during an argument with another student. "None of the assaults resulted in any significant injury to any of our students," said Sampson.

Sampson said the use of technolgy and the availability of drugs are some of the reasons why substance abuse has risen. Each building has a Student Assistance Counselor (SAC) to help any student having trouble stemming from substance abuse, whether it comes from the home or is just a student making poor decisions, the superintendent said. The SACs from each high school meet monthly to make sure they are doing everything they can to diminish substance abuse at their school.

"The drug of choice that's certainly emerging in our area is easily accessible heroin, so this is much more heavy duty than we may have been used to," Sampson said.

Support Services offered in FRHSD to mitigate violence, vandalism, and substance abuse problems:

• Assembly and School Programs
• Alcohol Awareness Month - April
• Dating Violence Policy
• Drug and Alcohol Counseling
• Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying Policy
• Individual and Group Counseling Meetings with SACs
• Manytowners - Lead for Diversity
• Peer-to-Peer Leadership Programs
• School Resource Officers
• Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD)
• Violence Awareness Week - 3rd week of October
• Week of Respect -  1st week of October

"Any high school in the state and the nation who says that 'there are no issues of substance abuse and no difficulties here' - they're lying to themselves," Sampson said. "It is something that we face on a daily basis and I think we do a terrific job here."