District Makes a No-Smoking Resolution for Its Students

It’s back to the restrooms for teen-age smokers in the William S. Hart High Union School District.

After nine years of allowing high school smokers to puff away in designated spots on its campuses in the Santa Clarita Valley, the district school board Tuesday night voted to eliminate smoking areas and penalize students who are in possession of tobacco products.

The district’s decision comes in the wake of a new state law, which takes effect Jan. 1, that bans student smoking on high school campuses and allows principals to suspend students found to have tobacco products.

During debate on the “no smoking on campus” legislation, its author, Assemblyman William J. Filante (R-Greenbrae), called a 1977 law that gave school districts discretion in establishing smoking areas “a mistake.”

Many of the state’s school districts created campus smoking areas. But many others, including the state’s largest school system, the Los Angeles Unified School District, never did.

On Wednesday, students in the smoking area of Saugus High School said the “mistake” was banning campus smoking areas.

“We’ll just cut classes or smoke in the bathrooms,” one ninth-grader said.

“It’s not fair because they allowed us to smoke up until now. Why change the rules?” asked Danielle Failla, an 11th-grader.

“It won’t stop anyone smoking,” predicted 10th-grader Toby Panfil. “People will just start sneaking around.”

The new anti-smoking policy will begin statewide after winter break when students return to classes on Jan. 5. In the Hart district, the ban extends to all school-sponsored activities such as athletic events and dances. The ban also covers evening adult classes on high school grounds. Teachers will still be able to smoke in staff rooms.

The Hart school board Tuesday night established a set of penalties for those caught with cigarettes or chewing tobacco.

For the first infraction, a student can be suspended from school for one day or be assigned to four hours of Saturday school. At Saugus High, the Saturday program for smokers will consist of a 2-hour health class featuring anti-smoking films and lectures, and two hours of cleaning up the campus.

Punishment for the second offense is one day suspension from school and assignment to Saturday school. Students who break the tobacco ban three or more times will receive two-day suspensions for each infraction.

Parents will be contacted each time a student is disciplined under the new policy.

Saugus Principal Michael von Buelow said that two aides will be added to the staff of four that now patrols the campus during the day. The primary responsibility of the new aides will be to check restrooms and find out-of-the-way spots where smokers might try to sneak a drag, he said.

The aides, teachers and administrators will be on the lookout for telltale signs of tobacco, such as cigarette packs in shirt pockets and round chewing tobacco containers in back pockets, according to Von Buelow.

Only 150 out of 2,000 Saugus students identified themselves as smokers in a recent schoolwide survey, according to the principal. This low percentage coincides with American Cancer Society data on teen-age smokers, which shows the number of younger smokers declining.

In 1984, the most recent year for which figures are available, 16% of the nation’s male high school seniors and 21% of female high school seniors identified themselves as smokers. The percentages were down from a similar American Cancer Society survey in 1976, when 28% of the male seniors and 29% of female seniors called themselves smokers.

Principal Von Buelow said he and many supporters of the tobacco ban believe it will help some Hart district teen-agers stop smoking.

On Wednesday, only two of about 35 students in the Saugus High student smoking area--the edge of a fenced-in playing field near the lunch area--said they were going to quit smoking when they come back to school in January.

“Getting rid of the smoking area won’t get people to quit,” 10th-grader Karla Otto said.