Police don't want to get involved ?

Next question: are the police being a) lazy; b) incompetent; c) paid off; or d) all of the above?

I always thought that any kind of drugs, including alcohol found on school property was a police matter.

It should be left to the parents to deal with. STOP LETTING POLICE RAISE KIDS!!!

STOP LETTING POLICE RAISE KIDS????? What are you talking about? It is their job to enforce the laws. If one of those teens died, you would be blaming them that they did not do enough. Clearly the parents did not do enough.

The students who disrupted the pep rally should be suspended at the very least. If it were private school they'd be expelled.

Its the parents responsibility. Get government out of our lives.

So ALL seniors are punished with a suspension of the Open Campus policy for two weeks, and my Soph. daughter, who likes the Pep Rallies, is punsihed by the cancellation of ALL Pep rallies from now on, but the drunks are back in school and the school and the police don't want to deal with it. OK, now I feel a lot better about the incredibly high taxes I spend to live in this Eden. Well, this town is full of the most selfish and obnoxious people on the planet, why should we expect more from the local authorities, huh ?

You seem to forget that it was sophomores also that were intoxicated

TAXPAYERS SHOULD NOT PAY FOR PEP RALLIES. We need our kids and America to be smarter, not a better cheering squad. Have a new autumn event that does this, or helps them become more collaborative. Not to mention, the mindlessness of mass pep rallies encourages drunkenness.

Let me get this straight. The legal drinking age is 21. The police know of students engaged in underage drinking on school property at a school event, yet want to "leave it to the school" to handle? Would that apply if any of these kids had killed themselves or others in a DUI incident on the way home from the pep rally? As someone who was arrested on a minor offense just once when I was 20, I can telll you from experience that NOTHING will make a more lasting and positive impression on these young kids than having the police fully involved. Kids simply do not fear teachers, administrators or parents. But in a "Mayberry" town like Chatham, they absolutely fear the police and having "a record." Further to that point, future pep rallies could go on as scheduled if two things happened. First, have the kids go through a basic security check on the way in (if this does not already happen). This would catch anyone as drunk as these kids were. Secondly, anyone found to be intoxicated will be arrested on the spot for underage drinking, possession of alcohol, etc. Punishing all students for the illegal actions of a few reveals a school that is unprepared and unable to react smartly to an incident almost anyone who lives in Chatham could see coming. If these kids had been caught stealing cars in the parking lot, the law would handle it. This should be no different. Otherwise the message to kids is that some laws are to be followed and others ignored.

Right. As is, all the school policies, guidelines, job aprasials, BOE guidelines and the state and local governments laws, are structured to allow for interpretation, and degrees of freedom in inforcement. Which basically means they can look the other way when they want to.

If you research the laws and guidelines in place you will see that the catch all phrasing is such that it is worded to allow for escape from having to make the hard decisions, or if you will subject to enterpretation.
The student guidelines state "will be subject to". At no point is anything stated as an absolute, or provide for some form of minimum decipline.

The local statutes relative to underage drinking and the enforcement are subject to descretion of the police force belief that they should take legal action. They can chose to not prosecute, leave it up to the School and or parents. Just because an illegal action was witnessed does not require the Police to act on it.

Which brings us to the issue. Do we want to rectify the policies to enforce some form of minimum decipline. Do we want the Police to enforce underage drinking, which would result in minimum fine of $1000 and loss of license (driving previligaes) for 6 months.

Or do we want the Parents and administration to make and take action that they feel best suits the matter at hand.

I agree too. Well said Todd.

I'd just like to add that Prof. Groh sounds like he is on some other planet suggesting that the rowdiness of the pep rally had nothing to do with alcohol. For the last few days, comments from people who admit to being high school students have described how "everyone" drinks before the pep rallies, how it's always been that way, how it's just part of being a senior (and, apparently, junior, sophomore, and freshman), and how during the pep rally senior kids were hitting up the underclassmen for their smuggled drinks. Denial ain't nuttin' but a river, Groh--the dirty secret is kind of...out.

Underage drinking is, and pretty much always has been, an issue. But it becomes a PROBLEM when the drunk kids feel that they can run amok in public spaces, attend school, drive, and otherwise double down on their reckless behavior---with impunity. So, party on kids...in your own basements...and when you feel it coming back up, keep it on Mom's rug.

Bruce,
If the mission is to stop kids from underage drinking - especially on school property and at school-sanctioned events, then the greater the fine and the stiffer the punishment the better. If just ONE of the students who was drunk at the pep rally was arrested, fined $1k and had her license suspended, I suspect that would be the end of drinking at pep rallies. If the police don't enforce the law, the kids will continue to break it. Leaving such critical decisions to parents and school administrators is how we arrrived at this trouble in the first place.

Underage drinking goes on EVERYWHERE. The fact that this is such a big issue really proves to me (a 20 year old CHS Graduate) that none of you have any idea what your kids are doing on the weekends. Have you ever been to a Sweet 16 that your child has attended? Drunk kids. Have you ever looked into the student section at Cougar Night? Drunk kids. The overwhelming majority of high school kids drink regularly, and they're going to continue drinking no matter what you do. The conception is that drinking is "cool," and this is not going to change. Making this a police matter won't stop them. Denying that your child takes part in this and that it's all the seniors' fault won't help either. Trust me. A good parent would understand this - and he/she would stop wasting time asking how and why kids were drunk, and instead, spend their time explaining to their children the dangers of drinking. I'm willing to bet that the drunk students at the pep rally (3 of which were not seniors) were downing as much alcohol as they could in a short period of time either because they didn't know any better or they were worried about getting caught in the act. Teach your children to learn their limits, to know how to make good decisions, and, if they're going to have a drink or two, to always have a designated driver. Stop trying to purge the town of underage drinking - and start accepting that it goes on, and you can teach your child how NOT to be the one getting taken to the hospital.

Bruce,
Essentially agreed, but I'll just make one last point and then leave this debate to others. To suggest ANY CHS student (regardless of age or class) is not "educated in social and legal matters" when it comes to underage drinking is naive. These kids all know the law and have known it for years. "Getting away with it" is a huge part of the allure of underage drinking as it has been forever. But now they KNOW they can get away with breaking the law with little or no consequence as this incident clearly illustrates. Part of a good education is strict discipline and serious consequences when called for. These kids knew exactly what they were doing and made a concious, premeditated decision to break the law. Which law is not, and should not be relevant. In the absence of "clear, structured and unambiguous policies" from the BOE and/or the administration, the only option available is the law - the very law these students willingly violated to the detriment of their classmates and everyone at CHS. What is a student's motivation to obey the law when the police are afraid to enforce it? Imagine the reaction if the police took a similar approach to a CHS student who committed robbery, assault or drunk driving. The knowledge that the police will punt the problem back to the school and the parents is something not lost on these kids. Trust me, they are laughing all the way to the next party.

I think that it is so pathetic that the people commenting on this are judging others on their parenting skills, while they're sitting at their computers at home and sticking their noses into other people's business- for people who are complaining about other people's parenting, you sure are spending a lot of unecessary time crafting pointless arguments that aren't going to change anything instead of parenting your OWN children. If you think that the only students drinking were the four who were hospitalized and that your "innocent" underclassmen children were in no way involved, then you are likely sorely mistaken. Let these parents deal with their children and punish them how they see fit- kids mess up. It happens. What's more important is that after they mess up, they right their wrongs and learn from their mistakes. So instead of spending your nights minding other people's parenting, maybe you should be keeping your eyes on your own kids- you never know when the Chatham Patch might pounce next.

Drunk kids at a pep rally. Let's see: School administrators/Chaperones == FAIL. Students == FAIL. Police == FAIL. Parents == FAIL. Let's stop arguing over who's to blame, take a moment to be thankful that no one got hurt (this time), and start working together to prevent this from happening again. Besides the emotional fact that it's you're children, the problem and solution are not rocket science....

The real question here is "who supplied the alcohol" ? Why are the police refusing to investigate 4 drug overdoses at a school function ? Really someone needs to look into why the police are down playing this. Is it who supplied the alcohol or is it who overdosed on the alcohol , or just to lazy to get out of a car ?

Most kids can get it from their own homes.

I remember a few year's back when someone posted a video on YouTube about the behavior of the kids at Chatham. The children of the parent who raised this issue were treated badly at school. I think there needs to be honest and open discussion with kids and parents at home, but also at school. Chatham skims the surface....sorry, but you can only do this for so long. Be open...air it loudly. Is it ugly? Yes, but let it been seen. Then, and only then can learning, growth and change occur.

Hi everyone,

Please remember to refrain from profanity or defamatory remarks in your comments.

Thank you,

Laura Silvius

Have the police charge public drunkeness against those students. Have the school punish those parties based upon school guidelines/code of conduct. Also have the school or police report this to DYFS because the parents failed. DYFS would be a good option as there would be no conflict of interest. Lastly, maybe the new superintendent will begin looking for a HS administration with some BACKBONE!

Okay, how many of us can really say they did not drink in high school? Furthermore, these are good kids. They did not drink at the function but it is obvious that their parents need to teach them how to be safe. The Board of Education DOES have a policy on this kind of behavior and it is in the Student Handbook. The District has followed the rules and the students have been punished. The rest is none of our business. If anything, this behavior is a wake up call to students because many were scared to see teens they know being rushed to the hospital. Rather than post defamatory remarks, we must remember that these are teens. They are experimenting and it is our job as adults and parents to educate our children as best we can. Forget DYFS and everything else because this could have happened to any one of our children. Not many of us are going to have a child that will not have experimented with alcohol by the time they graduate high school. So, to Lamp Post, these children made a mistake. This is not a DYFS issue!!

I'm letting everyone know I got absolutely hammered before the pep ralley and absolutely loved it. I also used tsquared as my practice noob down in dc

I find it wierd how no ones mentioned all the drunk parents that night. The parents were all drunk from the athletic boosters fundraiser that taxis were hired to bring them home. Its not just the kids. Parents need to set the example

As a 21 year old adult I believe that underage drinking should not be tolerated. However, these drunkards didn't kill anyone or hurt anything, so this problem may be blown out of the water a little. However, these kids should receive severe punishments, and parents need to set a better example. Parents are too loose these days on their kids.. If you're not the least bit strict they will do as they please.. AKA stupid decisions, etc. Trust me, I was a kid once.. However, every night I had to be home at a certain time, or my car would be taken away and grounded for weeks. These kids get it easy today.