4 of 5 on School Board Support Smoking Ban

A majority of Ocean View School District board members say they will support a proposal that would make the district the first in Orange County to ban smoking on all its school sites.

If enacted, the proposal, which is similar to a sweeping ban approved Monday by the Los Angeles Unified School District board, would eliminate the smoking areas now designated at each school for teachers, administrators, custodians and other employees.

Although final action on the proposal is not expected for several weeks, four of the Ocean View board’s five members said in interviews this week that they strongly support prohibiting smoking not only inside buildings, but everywhere on the campuses.

The proposal, introduced by trustee Sheila Marcus, also would encourage administrators to organize informal health clinics to help smokers, both employees and parents of students, quit the habit.

Board President Charles Osterlund, who said both his parents died of smoking-related diseases, said he too supports a ban. “Regardless of how a person feels (about smoking), it is incumbent upon us to follow through with this and not condone smoking.”

“I’ll support it,” board member Elizabeth A. Spurlock said. “In fact, I think we should even go further. I’d like to see our campaign on drug awareness be expanded to include tar and nicotine, because they are drugs--very addictive drugs.”

Marcus is pushing for a more stringent anti-smoking measure--one that would not only cover school grounds but also would forbid employees from smoking within 1,000 feet of any school property.

Other board members were slower to endorse that proposal but said they would consider it. Should the tougher proposal pass, Ocean View would have a smoke-free policy even broader than the one recently enacted by the Los Angeles Unified district. That ban forbids smoking on district property and at school-sponsored events, but the territory involved does not stretch beyond the perimeters of school grounds.

Board member Janet Garrick, however, said she has reservations about the smoking ban.

“I haven’t really seen where teachers are having a hard time monitoring themselves,” Garrick said. “By legislating (a ban), we seem to be saying in a way that we don’t believe in the teachers’ good judgment.”

Many districts in other parts of the country have enacted similar bans during the past year, local school administrators said. Los Angeles Unified was among the first districts on the West Coast, however, to enact one. State law prohibits students from smoking on school grounds.

In Orange County, officials said, the Fountain Valley School District has the strictest existing smoking policy. That rule, which the school board approved in March, forbids anyone to smoke inside school buildings, although it allows schools to set up outdoor smoking areas as long as they are out of the sight of students.

“Smoking poses such an obvious health problem. I think we, as a school district, have to take a strong stand on this,” said Marcus, who quit smoking several years ago after her mother, a longtime smoker, died of lung disease. “We’re telling our young people not to be involved in chemical use, but then we do it ourselves. We look like hypocrites.”

Marcus said she anticipates that some smokers in the district will fight her proposal. Presidents of both district employee unions said this week that their members so far have voiced no opposition. Before adopting a smoke-free policy, district officials will discuss its details with representatives of both unions, Supt. Monte McMurray said.

Marcus’ proposal to extend the ban to any area within 1,000 feet of school property is patterned after a statewide policy creating “drug-free zones” around school sites. That law, which applies to any district that creates such zones, states that anyone convicted of drug trafficking on a school site or within 1,000 feet of school property can face an addition of three years to their prison sentences.

“Obviously, we’re not going to sentence people for smoking,” Marcus said. “But . . . I’m hoping that smoke-free zones can be places where people are cognizant that children are present and that we need to set an example.”