PARMA, Ohio — With the start of a new school year, districts are finding new approaches to fight the vaping 'epidemic' among teens and young adults.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , “most e-cigarettes contain nicotine—the addictive drug in regular cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products.”
Researchers go onto say “using nicotine in adolescence can harm parts of the brain that control attention, learning, mood and impulse control.”
“If you were to ask me what vaping was five years ago I wouldn’t have been able to answer you,” says Parma City Schools Superintendent Charlie Smialek.
“Now it has exploded and it is absolutely one of the top issues in terms of discipline infractions that our high schools battle.”
The district partners with University Hospitals to enroll students who violate the vaping policy into classes.
“Our students come back to us after taking that class and they didn’t realize how dangerous vaping was, they’re very affected by it, and they’re affected by it in a way that makes sure they won’t vape in school again,” explains Smialek.
Taking things a step further, school resource officers also write tickets with a $200 penalty. “They will write the ticket and the students proceed as if they have been ticketed for speeding on the street,” explains Smialek.
“We saw a very dramatic decrease in disciplinary offenses from our first semester when we were just doing the traditional in school suspensions or out of school suspensions, to the second semester when we went to both the ticketing and the vaping class.”