CAMARILLO : Parents Upset Over Program’s Methods

The parents of seven junior high school students at Los Primeros Structured School in Camarillo want to pull their children from the Quest drug education program after reading an article critical of the program’s teaching methods, school officials said Thursday.

The parents’ action comes after a syndicated column written by Phyllis Schlafly was published in a local newspaper questioning the methods of Quest, said Evelyn Bassett, director of instructional programs for the Pleasant Valley School District.

Quest is an international program that teaches students about drug and alcohol abuse and encourages them to make responsible decisions. The article alleged that the teaching methods of Quest were akin to therapy, Bassett said.

“This group of parents now thinks the Quest program is therapy, which is totally erroneous,” Bassett said. “They feel it’s sufficient for parents to say to their kids ‘Don’t take drugs.’ We’re saying kids need to be taught skills to just say no. Quest teaches the process for deciding not to take drugs.”

Bassett, who declined to identify the parents, said they also complained that the program encourages students to make decisions independent of parental or adult guidance.

Norma Maidel, prevention consultant for the Ventura County superintendent of schools, said the accusation is unfair.

“In Quest, the children are taught how to use adults in their lives to help them make decisions, whether it’s their parents, their minister or their teachers,” she said.

“The skills we teach them are wonderful. They’re the kind of positive social skills we wished we had when we were growing up,” she said.

The program has different variations for each grade level, from kindergarten to eighth grade.

If the parents withdraw their children from the program, alternate plans for drug prevention education will have to be arranged, Bassett said.

“It is in our education code, and it is board policy to teach drug prevention,” she said.