TRR photo by Tom Kane Special education teacher Cheri Beamer, guidance counselor Regina Wagner and French teacher Christine Tosto share a light moment during a planning session. (Click for larger image)

Local educators spur students’ group

By TOM KANE

JEFFERSONVILLE — They’re voiceless students who are finally being given a voice.

They’ve joined a student group at the Sullivan West Jeffersonville campus called People Assisting Serious Situations (PASS), and they are quietly fighting drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy and bullying, and they act as mentors to younger students.

“So many students today who are opposed to drunkenness and drug use and things like that, find it hard to speak up about it,” said guidance counselor Regina Wagner. “Well, this program gives these students a voice. Up to now they have been voiceless. Not any more.”

PASS has four committees at the Jeffersonville campus: drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, tolerance and peer mentoring.

Each committee is advised by an educator. Cheri Beamer, a special education teacher, helps the teen pregnancy group. Wagner advises the peer mentoring students and Christine Tosto helps the drug and alcohol group and the tolerance group.

“The first thing the teen pregnancy committee did was put up signs in the school to make students aware of the statistics,” Beamer said. “Like, that children of teen mothers are more susceptible to diseases and other problems.” The group, which was formed only last November, is looking for other activities.

The drug and alcohol group and the tolerance group put on skits in the elementary school to show kids other options than giving in to peer pressure.

The peer-mentoring committee pairs an older student with a younger student who may be experiencing a problem that interferes with his or her studies. Most of the contact happens in the younger student’s classroom, but other times the twosome can connect outside school during supervised activity.

The tolerance committee organized an ambitious multi-ethnic night at the school recently, which was well attended by students, parents and members of the community.

“We had food from many ethnic groups; we had amateur and professional groups who played ethnic music; we had dancers from many traditions,” Tosto said. “The whole community really got into it. We tried to get the students to see that even though people were different from them, they were really people just like them.”

Wagner said that one of the biggest discouragements teachers and counselor have to face is the indifference of parents.

“People may be offended when they hear you say that, but it’s true,” she said.

“We had one event at school in the evening this year and advertised the event all over the place for weeks and only got six parents,” Tosto said.

A lot of parents are blind to what’s going on, she said. “Date rape has happened in this area and girls have to be careful of someone putting something in their drinks.”

Parents are also not aware of the extreme bullying that goes on all the time in school, in class, in the cafeteria, she said.

All three teachers said that many of the families had two working parents, who were often unable to attend school events. “It’s so discouraging,” Tosto said.

Parents of younger children often have control over their children, but when the child reaches high school age, peer pressure is very intense and the parent’s role becomes more challenging, she said.

“Another problem is that there are no activities in the towns for kids at night or on weekends,” Beamer said. “So they get together and drink beer, or worse.”

Getting drunk is a common pastime for a lot of kids. They do it because there isn’t much else to do.

“If we held a dance, only ninth and tenth graders would come,” Tosto said. “The older students didn’t want to be with the kids.”

They agree that something should be done in the communities to draw older high school students. Sports helps a number of students avoid some of these problems, but not that many can make the teams, they said.

“There are some students who drop sports because they want to drink, and they know that you can’t mix serious sports with drinking,” Tosto said.

One thing that has been successful in getting students to attend in the evening, they said, is basketball in the school gym.

PASS has about 60 students who participate in programs on different levels. PASS was created when attendance at Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) dropped off. “The high standards with regard to alcohol that SADD demands was too hard for some students, so they began to drop out,” Tosto said. “We still wanted to keep them involved in useful activities and that’s when we started PASS.”

Parents wishing to support PASS should call the school at 845/482-4610.