At the Walter Johnson High School prom three years ago, there were students who passed out from alcohol poisoning before even making it to the dance, Principal Jennifer Baker says.
School officials helped transport four students, from three different prom groups, to hospitals in Washington, D.C., for treatment, Baker told those who attended a town hall meeting on underage drinking in Walter Johnson’s auditorium Thursday night. That’s when the principal said she knew she would have to have serious conversations with families about alcohol.
“I can’t tell you how disturbing it is to see a person dressed up in a tux laying face down on the ground, unable to talk,” Baker said. “That was one of the scariest nights of my life because I was really afraid we were going to lose a kid that night.”
Baker was among three leaders of Bethesda-area high schools who joined with county officials and experts to discuss the severity of an ongoing problem with underage drinking in the area as well as talk about possible solutions at the meeting, which drew several dozen parents and community members and some students.
The event was organized as a joint effort between the Parent Teacher Student Associations of Walt Whitman, Bethesda-Chevy Chase and Walter Johnson high schools. The principals of the three schools spoke, as did three panelists—a county police officer, a prevention coordinator and an alcohol researcher. At the end of the meeting, parents and audience members asked for advice in dealing with specific situations.
The discussion covered topics ranging from alcohol’s dangers to brain development to the consequences parents can face for allowing or failing to prevent underage drinking.
Bethesda-Chevy Chase Principal Donna Redmond Jones recommended parents and school officials work to find why students are turning to illegal substances such as drugs and alcohol in order to have fun and spoke of the importance of teens learning good habits before they’re on their own in college.
“Why aren’t they good enough just themselves, just them in a room with their friends having a good time?” Jones said. “Why is that not good enough? Why do they feel they have to be medicated to engage socially and what can we do to address that so they don’t feel their entire social lives revolve around alcohol?”
Jones and the other panelists stressed the importance of the community working together on the issue. Walt Whitman Principal Alan Goodwin pointed to upcoming Homecoming dances at local high schools as an example of where the schools would work to ensure the event was safe and parents could take responsibility for bringing students home or knowing where they go afterward.
The school officials stressed the problem encompasses more than just a few misbehaving kids—Goodwin said many good students turn to drinking as a reward for making it through their challenging academic schedules. That’s why, Jones said, parents and teachers have to be careful not to add to the stresses of students’ lives.
But Ben Stevenson, prevention coordinator for the Montgomery County Department of Health & Human Services and one of the panelists, said it’s also important to keep students busy and involved and parents should focus on making sure their children have multiple pillars of support they can always turn to.
“There’s no manual really behind trying to keep your kids drug free,” he said. “You just really have to sit them down and have an open dialogue with them and hope and pray that they give you, you know, that opportunity and share what’s going on with them so you can help.”
In the portion of the event dedicated to the medical aspect of drinking, Aaron White of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Alcohol & Alcoholism noted that underage drinking has been on the decline nationally for 20 years and many students don’t drink.
Still, it is easy to develop a lifelong dependence at a young age, White said, and he cautioned against kids using alcohol to cope with stress or problems in their lives, which he said is more prominent among girls and young women.
Montgomery County police Officer Jeremy Smalley, another panelist, listed the legal consequences of underage drinking for students and parents. He warned that kids could face criminal charges even if they don’t drink themselves.
“If it’s a party in the basement of the house and there’s a keg in the basement,” he said, “all students if they’re under the age of 21 are technically guilty of possession of alcohol because they knew or should have known that it was there and it was an illegal substance.”
Parents who host underage parties can face up to a $2,500 fine—sometimes levied per underage student at the party, although Smalley said that was rare. Minors caught drinking underage are usually required to take an alcohol education course and to perform community service. Use of a fake ID can result in the suspension of a driver’s license, Smalley said.
Monica Sakala, a Kensington resident, attended the event to be prepared when her elementary school children get older and because she works with nonprofits specializing in alcohol abuse.
“I thought it was incredibly valuable in terms of not only what parents can be doing,” she said after the meeting, “but the consequences parents can face by not being more proactive and caring in preventing underage drinking wherever you can.”
Donna Sawyer, a Silver Spring parent of a B-CC junior and a recent graduate, said she came to support Jones in what she sees as an especially important cause. She said she was satisfied by how the panelists handled the topic.
“This is a very serious topic of drinking and underage drinking,” she said, “and I wanted to come and show support and get as much information as I could.”
