School officials: No funds to fight drug war

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Thursday, Feb. 7, 2002 | 10:09 a.m.

Faced with an exploding population and gutted budget, Clark County School District officials say they're struggling to solve the growing problem of drug use and sales on school campuses, as seen in a new survey released Wednesday.

There is no money to spare for schools to launch new anti-drug campaigns or programs, said Sheila Moulton, president of the school district's board of trustees. The school district is facing a $12 million to $15 million budget shortfall for the 2002-2003 school year and has already been forced to cut this year's budget by $3.4 million, Moulton said.

"The school district's focus is on reading, writing and arithmetic, and we spend most of our time and resources on basic education," Moulton said. "We need to involve the entire community, and especially the families, if we are going to deal with the problem of rising drug use."

Of the 3,700 high school students in the Clark County School District who took part in the biennial "2001 Nevada Youth Risk Behavior Survey," 39 percent said they had been offered illegal drugs on their school campus. The figure was a 5 percent increase over the 34 percent reported in 1999.

The survey showed increases in students who said they had used cocaine, methamphetamines and alcohol.

Clark County's students are taught about the hazards of drug use as part of their health class curriculum, Moulton said. Every classroom is also supposed to have an educational poster detailing the dangers of drugs, Moulton said.

"We are concerned about the survey results, and we'll definitely be studying the figures to see where we can go from here," Moulton said.

Sgt. Ken Young, spokesman for the school district's police force, said incidences of on-campus drug use and sales aren't rising as fast as the student population. With 320,000 students, Clark County is the nation's sixth-largest school district.

The district expects to combat drug use, in part, with a federal grant that will pay for 31 additional officers, Young said.

"Ninety percent of the information we get about drug use on campus comes from other students," Young said. "More officers means more opportunities for us to build relationships with the students and establish trust."

Calling the rising trend of on-campus drugs disturbing, Sig Rogich, a leading Republican political consultant and president of the Clark County Public Education Foundation, said Wednesday more aggressive measures were needed.

The foundation has focused primarily on raising money to assist teachers and hasn't waded in to the substance abuse arena, Rogich said.

"In light of the survey's new findings, we should probably re-examine our priorities and realign our goals to help the school district in any way we can," said Rogich.