Jeanette Del Valle

School for Community Research and Learning

jdelvalle@scrl.newvisionsk12.org

Grudge Against the World
It all started one summer day on a street corner in Yonkers, New York, when Alby was 13. "You need to get your mind right. Hit this blunt," a friend said.

Alby didn't have the strength to say no. He felt he had to smoke the blunt (a cigar hollowed out and refilled with marijuana or a mix of cocaine and marijuana) to fit in. He desperately wanted to belong.

His parents had never been there for him. They were drug addicts themselves and couldn't handle the demands of parenting. So, Alby bounced from a foster home to his grandmother's to a group home. When he was about 14, his mother died.

"I wasn't supposed to go through this," Alby says. "I had a grudge against the world."

After trying marijuana (also called weed, grass, pot, herb, boom, Mary Jane, and chronic) to fit in, Alby kept abusing the drug because he enjoyed the intoxicated feeling marijuana creates. "It had me in another state of mind," he says. "I was relaxed. All my problems seemed like they were disappearing."

The Price
Alby's problems weren't disappearing. They were getting worse. The good feelings he sought from marijuana came at a price.

For the rest of Alby’s story, check out http://teens.drugabuse.gov/stories/story_mj1.asp.

Alby’s case is not uncommon. In a recent class, we discussed how drug use among teens at our school is affecting student academic success. In response to the issues that were expressed in that discussion, SCRL requested membership in the Task Force on Teen Initiatives (TFTI).

Congratulations! The tenth graders at the School for Community Research and Learning have been selected as student investigators of the Bronx division of TFTI.

Investigative teams consist of three or four student members. As part of your investigative team, you will conduct research on teen drug use in high schools using the public library, online resources, newspapers, magazines, statistics, case studies, surveys and interviews.

You will identify current policies that address the issue of teen drug use in schools, critique their effectiveness, and make recommendations to change or improve those policies.

You will explore the causes of high school student drug use, the extent of the problem, and possible solutions. You and your team will design posters to create awareness at SCRL about the problem and then you will present your findings and recommendations at a Town Hall Meeting.

In order for your investigative team to analyze and critique public policy on teen drug use, you will need to follow the PPA steps below. Each step has a worksheet that needs to be completed. Click on the links for instructions on filling out the worksheets.

1. First, define the problem. What is teen drug use all about? What does it involve? How does it negatively impact the student’s life? How does it impact our school?

2. Next, gather evidence. Check out the materials in the public library. Search the Internet for articles and research reports. Read newspapers and magazines. Look at statistics and case studies. Conduct a team survey or interview professional counselors or teens for their opinions about the problem.

3. Identify causes. Why do teenagers get high in the first place? What gets them hooked? Why can’t they just stop? Why do they come to school high? Do they come to school high or do they get high at school?

4. Evaluate a policy. What current policies exist to deal with this problem? Are they working? Who is responsible for these policies?

5. Develop solutions. How can the current policies be improved? Are there new policies that can be created that would be more effective?

6. Select the best solution. What is your team’s recommendation for solving this problem?

Some of these links are only a starting point. Search as you think necessary.

Public Policy Analyst

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/ppindex.html

United States Department of Education, Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools (OSDFS)

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osdfs/index.html

National Institute on Drug Abuse

http://www.nida.nih.gov/

United States Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

http://www.samhsa.gov/index.aspx

The Internet Public Library

http://www.ipl.org/youth/

Encyclopedia Britannica

http://www.britannica.com/

New York City Public Library

http://www.nypl.org

Online Library Servers

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Libweb/

Internet Search Strategies

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/tips/search.html

New York Newspapers

http://dir.yahoo.com/News_and_Media/Newspapers/By_Region/U_S__States/New_York/Complete_List/

Journals

http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/

New York City Department of Education

http://www.nycenet.edu/default.aspx

New York State Education Department

http://www.nysed.gov/

United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics

http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/

National Criminal Justice Reference Center

http://virlib.ncjrs.org/DrugsAndCrime.asp

United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/

Experts

http://www.vrd.org/locator/subject.shtml

Issues and Causes

http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Issues_and_Causes/

Information Gathering Tools

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/info.html

http://eservices.nysed.gov/vls/menu.do?tmid=8

New York State ELA Standard 1: Students will read, write, listen and speak for information and understanding.

New York State ELA Standard 2: Students will read, listen, and speak for literary response and expression.

New York State ELA Standard 3: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for critical analysis and evaluation.

New York State ELA Standard 4: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for social interaction.

New York State Technology Standard 2: Information Systems. Students will access, generate, process, and transfer information using appropriate technologies.

New York State Health, Family, and Consumer Sciences Standard 3: Resource Management. Students will understand and be able to manage their personal ad community resources.

New York State Social Studies Standard 5: Civics, Citizenship, and Government. Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of the necessity for establishing governments; the governmental system of the United States and other nations; the United States Constitution; the basic civic values of American constitutional democracy; the roles, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship, including avenues of participation.

	RESEARCH	SURVEY OR INTERVIEW	POSTERS	PRESENTATION
SATISFACTORY	All the worksheets are complete. All research materials are cited in the annotated bibliography format.	The survey or interview has a clear purpose that is relevant to the topic and useful to your research.	The poster or posters produced create awareness of the issue and offer solutions and resources.	The Town Hall presentation explains the problem, causes, and solutions in a clear and organized format. Your research and evidence supports your recommendations.
NEEDS IMPROVEMENT	Worksheets and/or research are incomplete. Research is not in the proper format.	The survey or interview is somewhat related to your topic and research.	The poster or posters produced address the issue and solutions indirectly.	The Town Hall presentation generally addresses the problem, causes, and solutions. Your research and evidence weakly support your recommendations.
UNSATISFACTORY	Worksheets were not done and/or research was not documented and formatted properly.	The survey or interview is not relevant to the topic and/or not useful to your research.	The poster or posters produced do not relate to the issue and/or does not offer any solutions and resources.	The Town Hall presentation does not explain the issue and/or is not presented in a clear and logical format. Your research and evidence does not support your recommendations.

The completion of your investigative team’s project has helped you define the problems involved with teen drug use, research the causes, evaluate current policies that address the issue, and create solutions. You have gained the knowledge and experience necessary to conduct thorough research on any topic that interests you in and out of the classroom.

The research that you have produced is valuable. Teen drug use is a problem that continues to plague our society and rob our teens of their true potential. The solution to eradicating this problem is in the hands of teens just like you and your investigative team.

Thank you for all of your hard work.