Safety Vs. Smoking Puts Schools In Difficult Position

Dave Feldhusen, dressed in a tie and tweed jacket, looked like a banker at an Ozzy Ozborne concert as he stood among the pack of student smokers clustered on a sidewalk in front of North Central High School.

Feldhusen, the school’s vice principal for discipline, wasn’t there to bust blue-haired heads or pull students by their nose rings into his office. He wanted to make sure they were safe.

“If you close them off, students are still going to smoke, they’re just going to find some place else,” said Feldhusen.

Feldhusen said administrators have tried to enforce the state smoking ban in public schools, but students just walked across the busy, four-lane Howard Street. Once off campus, kids are more prone to skipping class and more vulnerable to violence or harassment at the hands of non-students, Feldhusen said.

That creates a delicate balancing act, between protecting student safety and upholding a law.

“That’s a real thorn in every administrator’s side, with balancing the letter of the law with … the realities of students smoking,” said Feldhusen. He noted the sidewalk in front of the school is not technically on school grounds and is not covered by the ban.

Mead School District administrators struck their high beam pose last week when they installed 150 feet of fencing around an area at Mead High School predominately used by student smokers.

John Van Haalen, one of three vice principals for discipline, said the $900 fence was an endorsement of safety, not smoking.

“Ideally, it would be nice if we passed a law and all kids would stop smoking,” said Van Haalen. “It would be nice to think kids will change their behavior.”

The gravel and grass area on the southwest corner of campus is next to the driveway for buses and faculty parking.

Like North Central, Mead officials enforce an outright ban. Students started running back and forth across Hastings Road. About two years ago a student was hit, but not seriously injured, by a passing car.

“It’s a safety issue,” said Van Haalen. “We have a lot of kids there before and after school. What we are trying to do is prevent kids from going back and forth across a busy arterial.”

When Rogers High School enforced the ban, students stood in the middle of Pittsburg Street and smoked. Most Rogers smokers now puff along the sidewalk along Pittsburg. At Shadle Park High School, students walk off campus to the adjacent park to smoke, according to Dan Close, vice principal for discipline.

All schools enforce the smoking ban in most areas of campus. Feldhusen said he has thrown out at least 10 students for “sneaking around the corner” for a puff.

The school policies can be difficult to explain. If schools force students off campus, residents near schools complain of the vandalism and trash that are sure to follow. Such was the case several years ago at Shadle Park.

“I’d just go off campus (if the ban was enforced), but a lot of bad things would happen,” said North Central sophomore Sunny Thew, tapping a pack of Marlboros.

But allowing students to stay on campus can also spur complaints. On Oct. 17, Michelle Coburn and Lisa Marcoux wrote a letter to The Spokesman-Review criticizing administrators for letting students smoke on campus.

“Not only are teachers and administrators breaking the law by letting them smoke on school grounds, they are contributing to their delinquency by actually giving them permission to be there smoking,” they wrote.

A Mead High School teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, said faculty is critical of the new fencing.

“There is a double standard,” the woman said. “Staff has to completely leave campus.”

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