Discussion on vaping could lead to bigger changes at school

A discussion on a persistent problem with vaping at school turned into an opening conversation on how to solve that and other discipline problems for some students at Lake Roosevelt Schools.

Layla Flett, a student representative on the board of directors for the Grand Coulee Dam Area School District, cautioned the board and superintendent Tuesday night that some measures may not work as intended.

The subject came up when Superintendent Rod Broadnax asked Flett how she thought the school year was going so far.

Flett said the only real issue she knew of had to do with the vaping taking place in the restrooms, where the vape-detecting sensors don’t detect quickly enough.

The delay ends up causing innocent students trouble when the real offenders have already left the area by the time the sensors alert the office that someone is vaping in the restroom.

Flett said the alarm has incorrectly gone off twice on her.

Students may be sent to the office in that situation, which wastes a lot of time. Once there, without any vaping paraphernalia, they’ll have to wait while someone goes back to the restroom to search it.

“It’s just getting out of hand,” she said.

Broadnax said the consequences for vaping may not be strict enough, unless the student is an athlete. They have definite consequences under an athletic policy.

But Flett told the board more serious discipline may not meet their goal.

“In this area, it’s hard to find a way to release stress without using substances,” she said, noting that she had grown up around a family member who taught her that substance abuse was a good way to release stress.

To really change things, the school district needs to find a way to help kids change that mindset, she said.

Broadnax said in a prior district, he’d had at least four social workers to help in such work. Lake Roosevelt’s single counselor can’t do it all.

Maybe the district needs to consider hiring a couple social workers, he said. “That’s the piece I see is really missing,” said Broadnax, who just took over as superintendent in July. Some students “do have tough, tough home lives,” he said.

Board Director Shannon Nicholson said the conversation was an important one that should not be dropped.

She started smoking at age 15 without realizing what the cost of addiction would be 25 years later.

“Every day, I’m afraid that I’m going to get a cancer diagnosis because of my choices,” she said. “Whatever we can do to encourage kids not to vape” should be done.

Flett had more input.

Counselors may be a good idea, but might be shunned by native students worried that talking to a counselor about home problems could get them taken out of the home.

“They don’t want to be taken from the people they love the most, even if the people they love the most are the people who hurt them the most,” she said.

Listening in via Zoom, an audience member texted a message to the board saying that a Nespelem Community Task Force wants to help.