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Highlands Today

$400,000 Grant To Fund Alcohol Prevention Classes In School

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By Douglas  Carman | Highlands Today

Published: June 11, 2008

SEBRING — Area high school students will encounter a new set of classes when they go back to school in August.

The set of 12 classes will not be on social studies and math but alcohol prevention.

The new program is being funded through a grant totaling more than $432,000 to prevent alcohol abuse among high school students in the Florida Heartland, a top local education official said Wednesday.

Frank Gibbs, the executive director of the Heartland Education Consortium based in Lake Placid, said it would be up to the Highlands County School Board to determine how the courses will be inserted into the high school curriculum.

They each will be one school period long.

Gibbs had few details on the format of these classes, which actually belong to two separate programs. However, it will require training.

A press release from Congressman Tim Mahoney's office stated the funds were approved, though Gibbs said they won't be available until July 1.

The programs and the grant will go to five of the six school boards covered by the Heartland Education Consortium, including Highlands County.

The consortium includes the school districts of Highlands, Hardee, DeSoto, Glades, Okeechobee and Hendry counties. Okeechobee opted not to have the classes because they have a different program in place, Gibbs added.

Though he said he couldn't give a precise dollar amount, the grant money would be used for several organizations such as Students Against Drunk Driving, and the resources would be distributed proportionately.

Students will see this money at work during 12 sessions through the next school year, which will focus on alcohol abuse prevention. How those sessions take place depends on the school board.

Fewer of these grants reached the consortium the past year, which Gibbs blamed on the economy and increased competition.

State research suggested these programs are needed.

According to the bi-annual Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey conducted in 2006, about 23.9 percent of high school students are binge drinkers, and 15.7 percent of them came to school drunk or high at least once.

Also, juvenile DUI arrests are 89 percent above the state average.

Gibbs said this is typical in more rural areas of the country because school students are more likely to have their own cars or a friend with some form of transportation. In turn, they have better access to alcohol.

Urban kids, on the other hand, may not have such mobility but they have a wider range of drugs in their reach.

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