District Administration - February 2012 - (Page 44)

A New Prescription for Fighting Drug Abuse tula. e success of NASN’s anti-abuse initiative is also riding on the video segments of Pinsky—better known through his television appearances as “Dr. Drew”— addressing a high school assembly at KingDrew High School in Los Angeles. e segments run about ﬁve minutes long and are divided into topics with titles such as “What Is Addiction?” and “Why Kids Abuse.” In the segment “Smart Moves for Teens,” Dr. Pinsky explains how to help peers involved with illicit prescription drugs. “Talk to your friends about the dangers of prescription drug abuse,” Pinsky suggests. “Reach out to resources in your community; your immune from addiction—and testimonials by students who formerly abused. “ e combination of real students talking on this issue, along with Dr. Drew, make this a winner,” Embrey says. NASN has distributed almost 4,000 of the kits and also oﬀers their entire contents— minus the posters—online. Dee Smith, the school nurse at Mountain Trail Middle School in Phoenix, did not take long to order the kit—or to put it into action. A week after receiving it, Smith put on an hour-long assembly for about 150 of the school’s 850 students. Besides holding additional assemblies for the remainder, Smith plans on spreading Building a Standards-Based Curriculum e NEA also is developing free materials on prescription drug abuse and is integrating that subject into a broader approach to using prescription drugs properly throughout life. Nora Howley, NEA’s manager of programs, is aiming to ﬁnd a place in the middle school curriculum of standards-driven school systems. “We’re not aware of anything else like we’re doing,” Howley explains. “ ese materials will be tied to Common Core standards in health education and also to the reading standard of navigating and using nonﬁction information.” Reading about the dangers of prescrip- Last fall, the National Association of School Nurses started distributing “Smart Moves, Smart Choices,” a comprehensive “school toolkit” designed to prevent prescription drug abuse and featured noted authority Dr. Drew Pinsky in a series of video segments. school nurse is a perfect place to go—your teachers, guidance counselors, even your friend’s parents. ere is help. You could save your friend’s life.” “He has the star power of a wellknown professional in the world of substance abuse,” says Embrey. “I was at the assembly where we ﬁlmed the videos, and I’ve never seen students so attentive. ey were hanging on every word.” Embrey also points to the ﬁve video segments created with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and included in “Smart Moves, Smart Choices.” ese videos cover areas such as the science of addiction, myths about prescription drug abuse—including the belief that these drugs are harmless and that abusers are the prescription drug message over the school year by running individual videos during her school’s morning announcements, which are broadcast through video monitors in each classroom. “I love how the snippets are less than ﬁve minutes each,” Smith notes. “And there are not many programs that focus on prescription drugs.” Smith hopes that the parental piece will have more success than past drug education initiatives. “I’ve had an auditorium reserved for 600 people and had fewer than 10 show up,” she recalls. “ ere’s a ‘not my kid’ mentality. When I call home suspecting a kid of using drugs, the parents deny it. If I oﬀer them a free drug-testing kit, they don’t come in to pick it up.” tion drug abuse and the choices individuals can make, for instance, would align with that reading standard. e curriculum would also cover health education objectives from identifying personal behaviors that cause health risks to assisting others in avoiding such risks. “Teachers can drop it into the curriculum and it will help them meet their standards,” adds National Education Association President Jerald Newberry. Howley says that the new curriculum, due out in July, focuses on grades 6-8 and will consist of life skills units that not only cover the abuse of prescription drugs but that teach students such lessons as not to take leftover medications for a future illness without a physician’s guidance. 44 February 2012 District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - February 2012

District Administration - February 2012
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Conversations
Product Focus
What Can U.S. Schools Learn From Foreign Counterparts?
A New Prescription for Fighting Drug Abuse
The Game Changer
The Legal Implications of Surveillance Cameras
CIO News
Mobile Devices Drive Creative Instruction
Products
Crisis Response
Professional Opinion
Problem/Solution
New Directions

District Administration - February 2012