Schools Respond to the Rise of Student Vaping
- Vaping 101 Since e-cigarettes are still relatively new—and one of the great lessons of the anti-tobacco campaigns was that punitive approaches don’t work well—school administrators and health department officials say that giving teens and parents health information about vaping is critical to prevention. ...
- SEL and Vaping ...
- Peer-to-Peer Education ...
- The Long Game ...
Full Answer
What happens when a student is caught vaping at school?
And when a student is caught vaping at school, a TUPE-trained school staff member talks the student through their decision-making process, examining what led them to vape to help put them on track to make better choices in the future. Other districts are turning to their students for help.
Should educators reconsider disciplinary action against vaping?
But educators had already started to reconsider their disciplinary approach before the rash of new medical concerns. At Arrowhead Union High School in Hartland, Wis., about 27 miles from Milwaukee, administrators installed devices in the bathrooms over the summer that detect vaping and automatically send email alerts to the associate principal.
What can schools do to tackle vaping and smoking?
“A whole school approach is needed to address both smoking and vaping, making it part of the curriculum, highlighting the risks, and arming children with the facts so that they can make informed choices. It’s important to remember that the harms to health are significantly greater from smoking .”
What is Horry County doing about vaping in schools?
After hearing from principals that they need help dealing with “blatant” incidents of vaping, including an instance where students had videotaped themselves vaping on campus, the Horry County school district in South Carolina will have a mandatory three to five days out-of-school suspension for the first offense if they are found with e-cigarett...
What percentage of school staff are concerned about e-cigarettes?
More than 80 percent of teachers and administrators reported that they were somewhat or very concerned about e-cigarette use by students at school. Concern was slightly higher among high school staff (88 percent) than middle school staff (77 percent).
What percentage of high schoolers recognize Juul?
While more recognized a JUUL flavor pod (65 percent) and the JUUL name (68 percent), just 40 percent of middle and high school staff correctly identified the device, flavor pods, and reported they had heard of a product called JUUL.
How much more addictive are e-cigarettes than cigarettes?
Most respondents believed e-cigarettes to be equally or more harmful (82 percent) and equally or more addictive (90 percent) as cigarettes, while 18 percent perceived e-cigarettes as less harmful than cigarettes and 10 percent believed e-cigarettes were less addictive than cigarettes.
How many teachers use camera surveillance?
More than 40 percent of all teachers and administrators reported that their school uses camera surveillance near the school’s restroom, almost half (46 percent) reported camera surveillance elsewhere in the school, and 23 percent reported using assigned teachers for restroom surveillance .
Do teachers and administrators know about JUUL?
Despite rising teen use, less than half (47 percent) of high school and middle school teachers and administrators recognized a photo of a JUUL device. More than one-third (35 percent) mistook it for a USB drive, pencil lead container or other object, and 18 percent could not identify the device at all.
Looming Health Effects
Counseling vs. Fear Tactics
- Another thing that has health and addiction researchers worried is that a significant number of teenagers who start vaping—30 percent according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse—progress to traditional cigarettes within six months. “We don’t know why exactly,” said Alison Breland, a research professor in Virginia Commonwealth University’s psychology departm…
Parent Support Needed
- That’s the kind of comprehensive approach that Faren and school nurse Elizabeth Blackwell have been developing in Boulder Valley over the last two years. When Blackwell started as a nurse at Fairview High School, she was met with an “explosion of vaping incidents” and a dean who wanted to know what they were going to do about it. They started with informational letters to parents—…