Parents hear about things. They hear about many alarming things like overdoses during the school day from their kids, from other parents, from teachers, from social media, etc. And when scary things happen in the environment their children are in eight-plus hours a day, parents should be getting the truth directly from the administration.
The Santa Maria Joint Union High School District is reacting poorly to recent situations by refusing to release information to the public or parents about the overdoses that have been happening on campuses.
Hiding behind patient privacy rules in order to not release numbers or causes to parents, the media, and the public is contributing to the lack of information that’s out there. This makes it harder for parents and community members to be vigilant and come together.
Plus, this is a common school district tact: If officials don’t like the way the district might be perceived due to an incident, they completely clam up. This move does nothing to protect the students or community, and the end result is that the district looks worse.
Drugs are not the district’s fault, overdoses are not the district’s fault, but becoming an informational void is their fault. The result is rumors and circulated misinformation about what’s happening—including rumors that one overdose was fatal, according to Pioneer Valley High parent Vanessa Valadez.
“There’s also no information if the kids recovered; there’s a lot of rumors that one of the [students] died, but I don’t know because the school is not communicating with the parents,” Valadez said. “I understand the school has no control—if the kids [want] to take drugs, they are going to take drugs—but what they can control is the information they let parents know.
“It’s not the school’s fault, but a phone call would be nice.”
We at the Sun had to get our initial tip from the Central Coast Chisme Facebook page—which isn’t exactly a truth factory. Naturally, we then went to credible sources for the facts. Thank God for the Santa Maria Police Department—without it, this community newspaper wouldn’t know anything, and neither would anyone else.
Speaking of law enforcement, it seems unbelievable that the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office is claiming to not have any information about what’s going on with youth in the high schools that they provide resource officers to. Isn’t the Sheriff’s Office leading Project Opioid? A program claiming to try to take a bite out of the opioid issue? But it claims ignorance about the number of ODs that have occurred at high schools in its jurisdiction.
Kids these days have a lot working against them, from deadly fentanyl-laced drugs to destructive TikTok trends that encourage destructive and dumb behavior on campus, so school districts need to keep up. It’s not that difficult to use apps or automated phone calls (which Pioneer Valley did use after the March 20 on-campus drug incident) to directly address the issues, take control of the messaging, and get everyone the facts they need to work together to, in the words of Santa Maria Mayor Alice Patino, attack the problem.
Otherwise, this whole lack of communication will remain detrimental to the overall health of the students that everyone is claiming to protect and serve.
The canary needs to be protected and served. Send oaths to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 13-23, 2023.