Colorado "High" School yearbook shows kids smoking pot, drinking beer!

[Ninong]

Rocky Mountain High

The teacher who approved these photos needs to have her head examined.

Amy McTague, the teacher who supervises the yearbook production, sent a letter of apology to parents.

"It wasn't my intent or my students' intent to portray such a negative tone in their attempt to cover all aspects of a students' (sic) life and some of the very difficult choices they face," she wrote.

"My editor and I have discussed at length and have agreed that there was no balance on the pages that are of concern and that some elements are completely inappropriate. These issues detract from the many wonderful things that are included in this book."

Pay attention to what she is saying here: "...there was no balance on the pages that are of concern..." Wow! In other words, if they had just included some pictures of students not smoking pot or drinking beer next to the photos of the ones who were smoking pot and drinking beer, then everything would have been fine. No problema!

I'm surprised that in her zeal to allow her students to portray "all aspects of a student's life and some of the very difficult choices they face" that she didn't have them include a few photos of their sex life, too. Maybe she's fortunate that none of her students was involved in an auto accident while drinking beer, or she could have included a photo of the accident scene to "balance" out the photos of the students drinking beer.

This teacher showed incredibly poor judgment. What sort of message is this to send to the younger students in that school? Oh, yeah! Look, it's cool because it's even in the school yearbook.

[Irvine]

It seems that pretty much anything goes these days when it comes to the public school system, just dont mention G-D though

[SPasse]

Ninong,

I am certainly not going to try to justify the actions of the yearbook “chaperone”

But the party scene is a sad fact of life in Public Schools in general and Denver Public Schools and other Colorado Schools in particular.

I guess on a certain level I understand the teacher trying to highlight large disconnect between what goes in a yearbook and the actual reality of many high schools kids lives.

Again though, probably a “career ender” for the teacher…

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

Here's the original story from a Colorado newspaper article dated May 22. This article includes some of the pictures in question and they're worse than I thought. One picture shows a high school student lying on the floor face up while other students pour beer into a funnel attached to a hose that empties in the student's mouth. I think they saw this in one of those Animal House-type movies.

Every year we are horrified to read stories of freshmen in college dying from alcohol abuse that was part of some juvenile fraternity initiation and here we see a teacher-approved photo of just how it's done so that the younger students can perfect their technique early.

[Ninong]

But the party scene is a sad fact of life in Public Schools in general and Denver Public Schools and other Colorado Schools in particular.

It's a problem all over the country, not just Colorado. Underage drinking should not be tolerated at either the high school or college level. It's really troublesome to see it tolerated at the high school level.

College administrators refuse to deal with it. Then they put on a big show of shock when one of their students dies after being forced to consume lethal quantities of alcohol during an abusive fraternity initiation. It happens down here a lot and every time it happens, it's the same old story from the school's administrators. "Oh, we're not responsible because it happened 'off campus.'" An LSU student died last year but the initiation was held 'off campus' so that meant the school wasn't to blame. The school was to blame for allowing fraternities that they knew engaged in this sort of behavior.

Whether the drinking age should be 21 or 18 is a different matter but it happens to be 21. In this part of the country, the majority of the public believes the minimum drinking age should be 18. If Americans don't like that, they should work to change the law, not endorse violating the law. The local sheriff down here has a Christmas party every year at his home for his deputies. Because they are grossly underpaid, the majority of his deputies are under the age of 21. After they get a couple years experience, they move on to better paying jobs elsewhere. Anyway, the point of this is that this sheriff serves alcohol to his underage deputies at his Christmas party and thinks nothing of it.

[Poseidon]

Students can return their yearbook to get a refund or to have the offending text covered with stickers featuring new captions and quotes. The "Health - addicted to addictions" pages will be glued together.

*Puts on Flame suit*

As a former yearbook staff member I can say that these types of pages would NEVER have made it past our advisor. However that being said, with this school there is obviously a LARGE problem with drinking and drugs, maybe national exposure and embarassment is exactly what the school administration needed in order to be motivated into doing something about it.

What I quoted above is so typical of so MANY American cities today, if we cover it up, it isn't there.... What kind of message does that send? I say glueing the pages together and changing the captions is WORSE then printing the pages to begin with!

[Ninong]

...with this school there is obviously a LARGE problem with drinking and drugs, maybe national exposure and embarassment is exactly what the school administration needed in order to be motivated into doing something about it.

What I quoted above is so typical of so MANY American cities today, if we cover it up, it isn't there.... What kind of message does that send?

I wonder if this school's problem with drinking and drugs is "LARGE" or just average???

What we have here is an upscale, very-high income Denver suburb, whose students no doubt have much larger allowances than most students, especially students from poorer neighborhoods. They don't have to knock off the local 7/11 to get money to pay for their alcohol or drugs, their parents give it to them without including the parental guidance necessary to keep them out of trouble. You might argue that kids with lots of spending money are more at risk than kids from less affluent families??? Look at all the dippy Hollywood types who are constantly in and out of rehab before they even reach the legal drinking age.

I see two messages that can be learned from this sort of story: (1) Parents need to be more alert to the possibility that their kids are at risk, and (2) some teachers are way too tolerant of the status quo. Allowing those photos to appear in the school's yearbook was obviously an attempt by the students and the teacher to acknowledge that the problem exists but it was still in poor taste. For one thing, the students depicted are going to have a hard time explaining this to their own children twenty or thirty years from now.


__________________________________________________

Impeach Gonzo!

[Poseidon]

Coming from an affluent high school myself, I know that you are correct about the kids having more access to drugs and alcohol. I had 2 distinct groups of friends in high school, my "school" friends, (rich) and my neighborhood friends. My school buddies had access to just about ANY illegal drug you wanted, cocaine, heroin, (sp) HIGH Grade pot, perscription drugs, you name it! Heck I know for a fact that a few students were skimming from Mommy and Daddy's stash!

On the other end of the scale, my neighborhood friends could get pot and beer from the public school district that I lived in. Most students that go to Flint Northern are not wealthy, and at the risk of being un PC they fit your description pretty well. (Crime is rampant on the north side of Flint, we are the THIRD most violent city in the nation again.)

The reason I called it a LARGE problem is simple, there is no such thing as a small drug problem. You are either pregnant or you are not, you either have a drug problem or you don't....

My family history is not good when it comes to drugs and alcohol, so I may be more sensitive then most, but my Uncle died at age 31 from (and I have no idea how to spell this....) Cirrohsis of the liver. I don't touch any "pleasure" drug at all, period. When I was in High School, I faced a lot of peer pressure to drink/do drugs, but I would respectfully decline at first. If anyone was foolish enough to offer me a second or worse yet a third time, I would help them up off the floor, and then they wouldn't offer again.

I guess having size like I do helps when it comes to dealing with Peer Pressure. ;) I am trying very hard to teach my kids to stay away from the chemicals as well.

I still think the proposed solution is the definition of denial, and it will do nothing to address the issues drugs and alcohol have with the student body.

As for the students that are pictured, and allowed themselves to be identified, well they will have to be accountable for their actions. As long as they don't plan on going into politics.... I think they will be fine.

[SPasse]

Ninong,

I lived in Denver for 42 years, and still have ex-teacher friends that still do, so I will take a crack at this.

“What we have here is an upscale, very-high income Denver suburb, whose students no doubt have much larger allowances than most students, especially students from poorer neighborhoods.”

I lived in south Denver, and attended South High in the late 1970’s. Granted this was the 70s so all the normal drug clichés apply. The sad fact was it was easier to get a lid of marijuana than a Coke.

Getting a Coke involved walking to the nearest Seven Eleven. Getting POT involved simply going to the correct locker…

South High had a mix of kids from working class families and the more affluent college prep crowd. But the public park next to it (Washington Park) was known to be probably the biggest open air drug/pot market in Colorado.

I guess when it comes to alcohol and pot, not much has really changed in 30+ years.

Except it would have never made it into the yearbook… ;)

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

I guess when it comes to alcohol and pot, not much has really changed in 30+ years.

Scott,

I graduated from high school in 1954 and the only thing going around when I was in school was alcohol, mostly beer. And it wasn't a serious problem then at all. In fact, it was rare. I don't think pot and psychedelic drugs came on the scene down here until a good seven or eight years later. LSD and marijuana didn't get going down here until the early to mid- '60's.

[Poseidon]

I had a talk with my old yearbook advisor yesterday, (I still provide pictures for the yearbook, 16 years after graduation!) she was HORRIFIED when she read the article. I also told her how easy it would have been for me to get drugs while in school, and she was not surprised at all. Teachers and Administrators can only do so much, and when the offending students are the children of "Platinum Contributing Parents" or something similar, the school finds itself in even more of a pickle.

I am still not saying that the pages in the book are okay, I am just thinking that it is a sign of the communication era.