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Published on 03/30/1998 All articles from this issue

Sobering up Seniors

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By Linda Taaffe

Town Crier Staff Writer

Dealing with teen drinking

Schools, law enforcement look to discourage alcohol

High school graduations are just two months away, and students are struck with what they call "senioritis" - a condition in which the need to socialize and have fun takes precedence over studies.

But some take the fun too far. Brent Butler, schools resource officer for the Los Altos Police Department, said juvenile parties and drinking have "fired up again" with the approach of graduation.

In the past month, Los Altos police have broken up three juvenile parties; officials at Los Altos High School transferred a student to Alta Vista High School and suspended him for five days for bringing a beer keg to school and drinking in the parking lot during school hours; and four students from Mountain View High School enrolled in an alcohol counseling program in lieu of suspension after showing up at a school function drunk.

Pat Hyland, interim principal at Mountain View High School, said she doesn't see an alcohol problem within the school setting, but she knows it's pervasive in the community.

"I'm not where the students are on Friday and Saturday nights, but I hear the conversations," Hyland said. "Yes, there's a problem. The extent is what I'm trying to determine. I know there's stuff out there, but (students) are good at camouflaging things."

Wynne Satterwhite, assistant principal at Los Altos High, said drinking is "a reality of growing up. We really do try hard to make sure the students are safe."

Both schools sponsor alcohol counseling services, health classes covering the physical and legal complications of drinking, safe ride alternatives and awareness programs such as Sober Graduation.

Los Altos High uses a breathalyzer at school dances.

Depending on whom you ask, the alcohol problem ranges from just a few high school students to a majority.

However, reports show a 21 percent drop in alcohol and drug offenses at the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District, with 26 offenses recorded this year. Juvenile drunk driving arrests in Santa Clara County have also dropped.

The Bureau of Criminal Statistics shows that more than 4,100 youth between the ages of 14 and 24 were arrested in Santa Clara County in 1996 for drunk driving, a 50 percent decrease since 1990.

Linda Miller, director of the counseling program New Outlooks, said the drinking problem is "huge." She said kids learn from the media and their parents that "when they play, alcohol is part of that."

She said the problem stretches across the board at high schools from athletes to almost every walk of life. Miller said the problem seems to be the same in Mountain View, Palo Alto and Los Altos.

"Schools are doing a lot, but students are clever and it happens anyway," Miller said.

She said the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District and the Community Health Awareness Council joined forces nine years to offer New Outlooks for students who want to get clean. She said about 10 students are enrolled in the program at any given time.

One Los Altos High School junior, who agreed to talk to the Town Crier on the condition of anonymity, said, "All of my friends drink."

On the day of this interview, the junior said that some of her classmates had arrived at school drunk to take the annual statewide achievement test.

Last month she was fined $244 for hosting a party, where more than 100 people attended - many of whom she did not know - at her parents' Los Altos home while they were in San Francisco for the weekend.

The party was in violation of the Los Altos juvenile party ordinance, which prohibits anyone from hosting a party where 10 or more persons under the age of 21 are consuming alcohol. Teens can also face additional fines up to $1,000 and 30 hours of community service.

She said people arrived at her house in "party trains," or in about 10 carloads at a time. The junior said she had only invited a few of her close friends to her house. She said students are "so desperate" to find an empty house to hold a party, that if they hear about someone's parents going out of town, they just show up at a house.

"It hasn't discouraged me from going to parties," said the junior about the incident. "I've learned that if I go to someone else's house, I'm not the one who will get in trouble."

She said "only on occasion" do her friends drink and drive. "We're smarter than that. We never purposely drink and drive." She said if her friends drink, they do it early in the evening, so they will be sober by the time they drive home.

Another Los Altos High School student who also hosted a party that police broke up last month, said, "There's a group of people who get loaded all the time. Most people drink only on the weekends."

The senior said he knows of some students who go off campus during their free period and return to school drunk.

He said his friends can always find a couple of parties on any given weekend. Most of the time teens gather at a house when someone's parents go to a movie or away for the weekend, he said. Some parents are lenient and don't care if students are drinking in their houses, he said.

The senior said he hears of police breaking up a party every weekend, but "there's so many more than that. It's a bigger problem than anyone knows about. They never find the parties with only 5-15 people." He said he will continue to go to parties, but the incidence with the police has been a good excuse for him to tell his friends not to come over to his house and party.

The senior said he believes his friends drink because, "There's nothing else to do."

Butler said he hopes that school and police officials can at least prevent teens from driving drunk.

"We can do all we can, and (drinking) is still going to happen," Butler said. "Even when someone they know dies or has a close call, the impact is temporary. A year later, they're doing it again. There's no magic answer to prevent them from drinking. They're going to go to parties on weekends, still get loaded at dances."

Los Altos High School senior Jessica Dunn knows the horror of drinking and driving. She recently participated in the Sober Graduation "Reality Check," a one-day program held March 23, sponsored by the Avoid the 13/Sober Graduation Foundation to increase student awareness about the problem of drinking and driving on the part of graduating seniors.

As part of the program, Dunn and 150 other students were given field sobriety tests, arrested under a mock drunk driving charge, handcuffed and held in jail by local police.

Dunn said the program was an eye-opener.

"A lot of things you learn in school go in one ear and out the other. I think people learn from firsthand experiences. This is as close as you can get to a firsthand experience without it actually happening to you," Dunn said.

She said she hopes other students will learn from her experience, which will be published in the school newspaper next month.

Through tours of the Santa Clara County Main Jail in San Jose and the county morgue, Dunn got to smell the stench of formaldehyde, listen to the sound of the saw used to perform autopsies and walk past prisoners making comments at her.

Even after going through the program, Dunn said she cannot imagine being in jail.

Dunn said teen drinking isn't the problem. She said drinking and driving is.

Dunn said she has seen people drive after drinking a couple of beers.

"They don't worry about injuring anyone or the hardship it could have on their families," She said. Most of her friends are merely concerned about losing their licenses. She said driving under the influence usually happens when people go to a party without a plan.

Hyland said there's incredible pressure from peers to use drugs and drink.

"It's very hard to avoid it," she said. "The more (alcohol prevention programs) we put in front of them, the more chances we have of causing some sort of positive behavior. We have to be persistent."