Once-Stellar Drug Education Now Called Inadequate : San Diego Unified Students Get 5 Hours of Instruction; Other Districts Offer 330 Hours

The San Diego city school system’s drug and alcohol education program, once recognized as the nation’s best, has declined to the point where some students receive only five hours of instruction during their entire academic careers, the Board of Education was told in a special session Tuesday.

While other school districts offer students as many as 330 hours of drug and alcohol teaching, the San Diego Unified School District requires just five hours during the seventh grade, said Nancy Siemers, coordinator of the district’s Social Concerns Education program.

“Each year, a little bit more and a little bit more is taken from the program, so that about the only thing we can guarantee a student is five hours in grade seven,” Siemers said. “With luck, they’ll get some drug education in grades one through six. But it takes a stroke of luck.”

In a special school board meeting devoted entirely to drug and alcohol education, Social Concerns educators detailed their uphill fight to reach young students wavering between using and refusing drugs, and offered school board members some expensive options for improving the students’ odds of refusing.

Perhaps the most dramatic description was offered by social health educator Marion Eilers, who said she is inundated with requests for help from teachers on behalf of troubled students and from students themselves. As she tours the district’s schools, Eilers leaves her home telephone number for students and routinely receives calls from youths having trouble with drugs and family problems, she said.

“The youth of today are exposed to a drug-oriented and a sex-oriented society, primarily through the media and their media--the (rock) videos,” Eilers said.

In a report to the board, Siemers outlined three plans for improving drug education for students and training for teachers, mostly by hiring more people and expanding existing programs.

The three choices would cost the school district $265,000, $930,000 or $1.58 million, the last for a “dream” program that even Siemers agreed would not be the best use of the board’s money. Others pleaded for any help the school board could offer.

“I know that reading, writing and arithmetic are the Three R’s,” said Dr. Alan Spector, chairman of the district’s social concerns advisory committee. “But if you’ve got a kid on drugs, you’re not going to be able to educate him.”

The board referred the recommendations on long-term improvements to a committee. Board members also agreed to quickly step up training for elementary school teachers, so that more drug education can be offered to youngsters in grades one through six.

Siemers offered some startling information about the 19-year-old drug education program in her 28-page review:

- Despite a district curriculum calling for students to receive five hours of drug education each year during elementary school, less than one-third of elementary school teachers surveyed by Siemers are teaching the courses, she said.

Because of budget cuts, the teachers do not have the training to offer the instruction and often know less about drugs than the youngsters they are asked to teach, Siemers said. They often lack materials needed to teach prevention courses, she said.

“I find it a little bit frightening that a first-grade teacher is concerned that a first-grade student will be ahead of her as far as drug knowledge,” she said, adding that “the teachers are begging us” for training.

- Drug education has “a very low priority” at the elementary-school level. There is no way of monitoring whether a teacher offers the instruction. “If a teacher has to choose between an academic unit for which he/she is held responsible and a drug unit with no proof of competency, the latter is ignored,” Siemers’ report said.

- High school teachers have not received any updated training on drug issues since 1982-83.

- Peer counseling--older students offering drug instruction to younger ones--and drug education programs in grades 8 and 10 have been eliminated because of budget cuts.

Through grants, the district provides drug education to some students in grades six and nine, and about 50% of the district’s high school students receive some instruction by choosing a 10th-grade health and safety course, Siemers said.