One of the biggest disciplinary issues at Lakota West High School is the amount of students caught vaping/smoking THC in the bathrooms. This issue has caused many students to become suspended/expelled. It is a very serious concern that many staff members at the school have been working on solving and putting a stop to it. For this article I have interviewed Catherine Bella, an assistant principal at Lakota West main campus, and here is her input on the issue.

Q: “How do you feel about students vaping/smoking weed in the bathrooms?”

A: “I feel it is a health issue, a physical health issue, and a mental health issue for kids. I feel like part of our responsibility as adults in education is to help keep kids healthy and safe. I think that kids may think it’s not that big of a deal, they think it’s really common. But I think especially if you are doing it at school during the day that means that you may have a little bit of a problem that needs to be addressed.”

Q: “When you say these issues need to be addressed, what do you and other admin do to help solve the problem?”

A: “Well it’s complicated to address because part of the problem is our building is so big and we have so many bathrooms, if we could staff somebody at each bathroom that would probably really help. Obviously, we can not do that. We try to make sweeps when we are walking by them like if I’m just walking by a bathroom on my way somewhere and there’s a lot of people in there, I’ll ask them to get out. Usually if there are multiple people inside of a stall together that is usually a red flag and a lot of times those are the people we will bring out and search, because why else are they in a stall together.”

Q: “What is typically the punishment when caught vaping and what was the punishment for smoking weed?”

A: “The first time a person is caught with a nicotine vape we usually do a 3-day in-school suspension and something that just started, is an anti-vaping educational course so, if you do in-school suspension for that reason you are supposed to take the course. If you finish the course then you only have to do 2 days, so you can cut down your suspension by a day. The second time is a 5-day in-school suspension then usually the 3rd time you are caught we do an out-of-school suspension. Anytime THC is involved it’s an automatic 10 day out of school suspension with a recommendation for expulsion. What that means is we have an expulsion hearing which will determine when the student is allowed to come back to school and in what capacity. And when they return they are on basically probation so that it’s an understanding that if they are caught with anything like that again or another level 3 or 4 offense they would have another expulsion hearing and at that point, they probably would not return to school.

Q: “Why do you think people in general continue to vape/smoke weed knowing the repercussions, knowing the health risks?”

A: “I think it’s a lot more addictive than people want to recognize just like smoking cigarettes is addictive, I think both nicotine and THC can be addictive. I think we have a lot of unaddressed mental health challenges in our society, so, people are looking for ways to self-medicate. This is a common way people decide to self-medicate rather than addressing whatever the real root cause of the situation is.”

Q: “How do you think suspension or expulsion helps the issue?”

A: “I think the purpose of the suspension is to hopefully get the attention of the parents, it draws attention to the fact that we need to do something here, there is a problem. Sometimes parents may be aware but they don’t really know what to do about it or they’re just kinda caught up in their own world, maybe they don’t think it’s that big of a deal. So, when we have to suspended a kid from school now it also becomes the parents’ problem because now the student is at home instead of at school so it brings everyone together as a team to talk about what we can do to help the student who a lot of times is a minor who probably needs some kind of help in order to so that behavior, fight that addiction and address what the real cause is. It also shows the other students that there is a consequence for this and it’s not acceptable, we don’t allow it.”

Q: “When would you say these issues escalated throughout your years of being in education”

A: Honestly, I think it escalated since COVID, I don’t really know why exactly. I think mental health needs have escalated since COVID. It also has escalated just with the invention of vapes in general because let’s be real people used to smoke all the time. In the 70s people used to smoke in hospitals, schools, airports and airplanes then we learned it’s not good for you, and with cigarettes there’s a strong odor so you can’t really get away with it so, people had to comply with the federal laws that said you can’t smoke in public places but with vapes it makes it a lot easier now because the odor is not as strong, they are smaller, you don’t need a lighter. It’s just so much easier to hide so I think that really is what made it more prevalent in the last few years.“

Q: “Would you say this is the biggest disciplinary issue at West right now?”

A: “Suspended out of school, yes for sure.”

Q: “Other than the fact it’s your job to stop these issues, why do you care so much about putting a stop to the students that are vaping/smoking?”

A: “I take seriously the responsibility to keep our students safe when they are here at school. I feel like parents are trusting us with their children and trusting us to provide a safe educational environment. And, to me that gets in the way of education if we have kids that are skipping classes to go to the bathroom to vape that prevents education from happening. I know it seems to people like its super common and that everyone is doing it but their are actually as lot of students here who aren’t vaping and they want to be able to be able to go to the bathroom and not smell THC, they want to go to the bathroom and not have to wait to use the restroom because people are vaping instead of using the restroom. They want to go to the bathroom and not be worried that they aren’t going to get pulled into the office and be searched because they happen to be in the bathroom when that smell is happening. So it’s just about keeping this a safe educational environment”

Q: “If there is a student whose parents don’t care that their child is smoking, why do you still feel the need to punish them?”

A: “Because I still care about all of our students, I care about their health both physically and mentally. I want our students to learn the life skills they are going to need to be successful after highschool and one of those is how to cope with stress and anxiety in a way that does not get you fired from your job. The reality is most jobs you can’t take a quick bathroom break to get high and go back to work and be successful without getting fired. So, recognizing that this is a problem and trying to figure out what other strategies you can use to fix what’s going on.”

Q: “Can you estimate how many students have gotten in trouble this year for this issue?”

A: “My guess would be around 20. It seems probably low but it kinda just depends, we have some months where we don’t really have anybody in the office for that reason and some months where there are a lot of kids.”

Obviously, this issue has increased greatly over the past few years and staff members at Lakota West are working hard on dealing with this concern in a way that shows the students the repercussions of their actions and additionally trying to help them overcome the struggles they may be dealing with. The main goal of students getting suspended from smoking is that they will recognize the issue and try to learn better ways to deal with the stress that they are under rather than make choices that are harmful to themselves.