Two Williamson High Schools In Top 10 For Spring Break Boozing: Florida Police

FRANKLIN, TN — Students from two Williamson County high schools were among the most-cited for underage drinking during Spring Break in two Florida counties, according to a recent report. The Northwest Florida Daily News used data from the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Department — home of Destin and Ft. Walton Beach — and the sheriff's department in neighboring Walton County — home of popular Santa Rosa Beach and Seaside — to compile lists of the top 10 colleges and high schools where those cited for underage drinking during the last half of March were enrolled.

According to the report, Centennial High School had 13 students cited and Independence High four, putting those two Williamson County schools third and ninth on the newspaper's list, respectively.

In statements to both the Daily News and The Tennessean, district spokesperson Carol Birdsong said that without arrest records she could not confirm if the cited students were, in fact, from Centennial and Independence.

"It has been the district’s experience in the past that sometimes students don’t share correct information about the schools they attend for fear of repercussions at home," she told The Tennessean.

The sheriff's departments track school data in an effort to curb underage drinking through targeted programs and to determine where vacationers to the area are coming from.

“I don’t know that I would say (high school students are) more of a problem than the colleges, but it’s definitely a significant problem,” Sgt. Jason Fulghum, the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Department head of spring break operations, told the Daily News. “It’s just that when people think of spring break, they automatically think of college. They don’t stop and think about the fact that there are a significant number of high school-aged people that we deal with during spring break.”

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Two other Tennessee high schools — Pope John Paul II in Hendersonville and Memphis Christian Brothers — made the top 10, which was headed by Huntsville (Ala.) High School and Montgomery, Ala.'s St. James High School, which tied for first with 17 arrests apiece.

The college list was led by the University of South Carolina — perhaps fueled by the Gamecocks' men's and women's basketball teams making Final Four runs contemporaneous with Spring Break. The only Tennessee college in the Top 10 was Sewanee: University of the South, which is ninth with 14 citations, despite having a student body of fewer than 1,700.

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