Schools Wind Down Red Ribbon Week

Several Red Ribbon Week activities are planned for Ventura County students as the anti-drug observance draws to a close today.

Students at Rose Avenue School in Oxnard will dress in red clothing and will place red ribbons along the fence surrounding the Driskill Street campus as part of the school’s biggest event of Red Ribbon Week, said administrative intern Jairo Arellano.

“During the week, the students received wristbands with an anti-drug message and competed in a school poster contest,” Arellano said. “Each classroom chose two winners from among the classroom posters which were designed with the ‘Say No to Drugs’ theme. Those students received a special prize.”

Each campus designed their own Red Ribbon festivities, said Ethel Haymen, coordinator of the Oxnard district’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools program.

“At Fremont Intermediate School, we sponsored a student poster contest with the theme, ‘Instead of drugs . . . ,’ ” Haymen said. “The students expressed what was most important to them and what they could achieve instead of taking drugs.”

The posters are on display in the cafeteria of the North M Street campus. Students in Thousand Oaks schools also planned various activities.

“We have an unusual twist,” said Lisha Zindrick, president of the Wildwood Elementary School PTA. “Our school is distributing a red bike helmet to every student in the school.”

The school has adopted the slogan: “Protect your head inside and out--wear a helmet and don’t do drugs,” she said.

The school is expecting more than 250 community members to join in its annual barbecue at the school tonight, Zindrick said.

Students and teachers at Will Rogers School in Ventura donned red clothing early in the week and decorated the fences that surround the Howard Street campus with red ribbons, said school office manager Billye Thieman.

Teachers also provided projects for their students that emphasize the anti-drug theme.