Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One reason we sent our son to an independent school was that we wanted him to be in a more sheltered and controlled environment, hoping that issues like bullying and drug usage would be nipped in the bud. But as I've been reading through other threads on the independent school forum, it does appear that smoking pot (and maybe even dealing?) happen with some frequency even in the private school setting. Maybe no more than at the public schools, but certainly no less.

If you have a high schooler in one of the DC independent school, do you have a sense of whether this is a true problem, or just isolated incidents which are highly publicized or gossiped about simply because it occurs at a DC private school? In other words, do you know whether your kid or any in his/he social circle is actually smoking pot, whether experimenting or abusing?

I am sorry but seriously? So you think that paying $20k+ a year ensures that these things do not exist in your school? Did you go through life with blinders on? If anything, the kids are private school with access to more money from their parents will be able to but more drugs and alcohol than kids at public school. My public school friends were definitely not as involved with these things as the private school kids I knew is High school.

I could have written this post. Do not kid yourself, private school kids have access to drugs and alcohol.

Actually I think this is a bigger problem for well-to-do white kids generally. My white dd was much more exposed to drugs and alcohol at her private school than she was at her majority AA DCPS magnet high school. And when she was in DCPS, she used to run off to Bethesda to hang out with her white, well-off, drug-using B-CC friends. Two of my daughter's rich white friends were even addicted to heroin. That's why I always have to laugh during the typical suburb/city fights on DCUM when someone asserts that our kids will end up buying drugs on the corner in our urban neighborhoods. They ain't gettin' it from the people on the corner. They're getting it from their fellow students who are the children of white professionals.

OP, I'm joking around here but I know what it is to worry about your child's alcohol and drug use. The best thing you can do is to educate yourself and your kid and try to address it head on. But sending your child to an expensive private school is not going to protect them - it might even put them more at risk.

Anonymous wrote:Buy a home drug test and test your kid. Simple.

Yes, because nothing teaches personal responsibility better than drug testing your own kid. Jesus.

Anonymous wrote:Buy a home drug test and test your kid. Simple.

While you're at it, just buy a chastity belt and/or lock your kid in the house until they are 18.

Yep, substance use/abuse is just as common, if not moreso in private schools. I am a "big 3" grad from the early 90s, drug use was rampant in my circle. Mostly pot but also psychedelics, in another circle coke. Most of us turned out okay

Thank you. I think...!

Anonymous wrote:9:00, no, I don't know the lingo! Could you please define some of the terms you used?

Apologies to OP, as introducing lingo is probably way off topic. But here goes:

A water bottle with a hole jabbed in the bottom is used to "pull falls" which involves letting the gravity of water flowing out the bottom of the bottle create a vacuum to pull the smoke from lit weed on the top of the bottle ... resulting in a bottle full of smoke that can be passed about without wasting any. I know you are all pleased that today's kids are putting their physics class learnings to such good use and are frugal to boot.

"Wake and Bake" refers to the practice of smoking weed early in the morning within the first hour of waking up ... theoretically resulting in a great high. In this area it is a common phrase used to indicate getting high before going into the school.

"Hot box" refers to smoking in a small enclosed place, generally a car or shed, so as to not "waste" any of the precious smoke. Again, so glad the kids are frugal. <snort>

I could go on and on, but my point is that if you keep an eye on twitter and you start seeing references that you don't understand ... go to www.urbandictionary.com and look them up. The kids tend to exagerate and boast, but there is still enough real information that you should keep an eye out. The kids use twitter because they can post from their phones easily even at school. Anything they post is publicly available to anyone who wishes to read it ... and yes, schools do keep an eye out as well.

9:00, no, I don't know the lingo! Could you please define some of the terms you used?

Anonymous wrote:There is no excuse for the school finding out about your kid smoking pot or drinking before you do. That means your kid is using drugs, holding drugs or trading drugs at school. Way too late. Even the most nurturing, liberal minded school is not going to try hugging the drugs out of your kid. He or she will be supspended or kicked out. Either way, the college record is permanently stained.

I think you fail to realize that a lot of parents are either in denial, or simply do not pay much attention to, or spend time with, their kids. Often, teachers notice patterns of behavior, reduced engagement in classes and activities, etc that are indicative of possible drug and alcohol abuse. Also, teachers have other students confiding on behalf of their friends if they think that they may need help. I agree that private schools will suspend and/or expel kids using or possessing drugs on campus, but they often will take a counseling approach if they believe students are using outside of school. I speak from 26 years of experience as a teacher and administrator at independent schools.

Unfortunately, I have quite a bit of real time experience with this issue in Fairfax County high schools ... both public and private. It is very discouraging to say the least. Drug (primarily weed) and alcohol use is rampant across all school types and socioeconomic groups. Students from stable homes that receive seemingly good parental supervision and are working hard towards attending a good college are just as involved as other groups. Perhaps it was always this way, however, my memory of high school was very different. ??

My advice to parents is to consider school culture carefully, but do not rely on that alone to protect your child.

Secondly, please understand that even if your child is wise enough and has the self-esteem required to not participate or do so only marginally, s/he will be immersed in this culture at any school. No exceptions.

Facebook and TWITTER are the primary means of discussing use of and finding supplies of illicit drugs and alcohol as well as locating "addies" (addresses) for good parties.

It's distasteful and one wants to fully trust one's child, but LEARN THE LINGO and know your child's twitter name. If you find a water bottle in your home, yard, or car that has a hole poked in the bottom ... do you know what that is used for? Are you familiar with the term "wake and bake"? How about "hot box"? Does your child use the term "whip" for a car?

Know these things in advance so that you can better know what your good kid is being exposed to early. Advice and supervision provided just-in-time can really make a difference between a bit of experimentation and a real derailment down the road.

Good luck to all of us ... we are going to need it. :/

I got semi-curious about this issue of the use of drugs and alcohol, and the comparison between private and public schools. I recall one of my high school teachers relating his experience that private schools have more alcohol abuse, but public schools have more drug abuse. But that was 25 years ago, so I doubt it's still applicable. Here's what I found ...

Availability of drugs to teenagers: Even among teens that do not use drugs, it is acknowledged that they are fairly easy to come by. 29% of teens in grades 9 through 12 report that illegal drugs were made available to them on school property. Not only that, 38.4% of teens in public schools report that drugs are readily available (as opposed to 22.4% at private schools). Teens in upper grades report greater access to drugs than do teenagers in lower grades. And 62.9% report that street gangs are present to sell the drugs.
http://www.teenhelp.com/teen-drug-abuse/teen-drug-abuse-statistics.html

Public school teachers are about 3x more likely than private school teachers to report drug and alcohol abuse as a serious problem for their students. Not sure if that means the public school students are using more, or have more problems using, or even maybe whether public school teachers are just more conscious of the issue.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d05/tables/dt05_071.asp

The survey suggests there’s been a big jump in drug use in private schools. In 2011, 36% of private school students said their school was “drug-infected.” But in the past year, that figure jumped to 54%. It was the first time in the history of the survey that a majority of private school students reported drugs on campus. The overall proportion of high school students, public and private, who reported drug-infected campuses was 60%.
http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/22/survey-17-of-high-schoolers-drink-smoke-use-drugs-during-school-day/

For perspective, consider how the gap is closing:
In 2002, 46 percent of students at public high
schools said their school was drug infected
compared to 24 percent of students at private
high schools; in 2012, 61 percent of students at
public high schools said their school was drug
infected compared to 54 percent of students at
private high schools. The 22 percent gap has
narrowed to seven percent.
http://www.casacolumbia.org/upload/2012/20120822teensurvey.pdf

Interesting to see that Nancy Reagan and her "Just Say No" campaign was seemingly pretty successful.
http://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/monitoring-future/monitoring-future-survey-overview-findings-2012

This mostly relates to drugs. I'm bored now, so I'm not searching for alcohol comparisons.

The private school kids I knew had the fake IDs and we public school kids would bring the weed to the parties. Private school grads were the biggest partiers at my college.

OP, I snorted my lunch when I read your post. I attended a HS comprised mainly of blue collar kids with a smattering of white collar families. The MS I attended, however, mainly fed into the other HS in town. The MS was sharply divided between blue collar and the town's elite. Any major purchases and dealings of drugs and alcohol was done by the more wealthy kids. Yeah, blue collar kids smoked and drank, but money dictated their frequency. I remained friends with a lot of those wealthy kids in HS. At one point, one of the kids was pilfering from the other kids' home to supply his habit. And only the really wealthy kids were dealers. No one else had that kind of money to buy in volume. And if they fronted you and you didn't pay back, watch out.

Anonymous wrote:It's not like they're doing this at school so I don't think it matters if they're in public or private.

Many in this generation believe that smoking weed is less unhealthy than drinking alcohol, shooting heroin, snorting cocaine or being reliant on anti-depressants and Xanax.

DS went to a local independent, is in a top college science program now and he's done the research, tried the binge drinking and made the choice of occasional pot use instead. It made me upset at first but after hearing his research and reasoning, I've become a little more accepting.

Not only this, but these kids are also buying Adderral and other ADD drugs to take before tests to be able to focus and improve performance. My son has told me about how many of his friends do this on a regular basis. I'd be far more worried about that then some pot or beer drinking on the weekends. The real danger is impaired driving. They already stink at driving and if they are even slightly impaired they present a real danger to themselves and others. Thats what worries me more than anything else.

What grade? Is your child a Junior?

The Bethesda Mag article is bullshit. A lot of internet urban legends that do not bear up under scrutiny. That said, drugs are a fact of life at any school.