No Drug Problem Here, Principal Says
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The principal of the Bronx High School of Science defended her prestigious school’s anti-drug program and said there is no “drug problem” there, less than a week after one of her 10th-graders, Lewis Dvorkin, died of a heroin overdose.
“In the years that I’ve been here, I certainly haven’t recognized drugs as a problem,” the principal, Valerie Reidy, said Friday in a telephone interview. “If you’re asking me, ‘Do we have some students here who may have a drug problem?’ I cannot confirm or deny that. We know that Lewis did. But I think that – look at society. Look at every other school. Look at upper-echelon schools, private schools, Westchester schools. I don’t think we’re immune to societal problems.”
Ms. Reidy said that some students ar rive at Bronx Science with “significant issues,” and that even though the school has a full-time drug counselor, it doesn’t have the resources to avert all problems.
“We certainly don’t have full-time psychologists, and some students need intensive direction and intensive care,” she said. “We can recognize it. We can recommend. We can refer. But again, in a school of 2,600 students, I would say to you if there was more students with this problem, it’s a very small group of students.”
Ms. Reidy’s Friday morning conversation with The New York Sun was the first time she has answered questions about her students’ drug habits and what she’s doing to counter them since 15-year-old Lewis was pronounced dead early on September 25. He was taken to a hospital from their apartment on East 86th Street in Manhattan after his 17-year-old brother, Nathan, could not revive him.
In the past week, Lewis’s close friends and other schoolmates who knew him have told the Sun that the youth was not at all alone when it came to drugs. Students freely admitted to snorting heroin and doing other hard drugs, as well as taking prescription pills they weren’t prescribed. They said they used the drugs at school, at Harris Field across the street, and at home.
Ms. Reidy was a biology teacher at Bronx Science, a specialized public school with a reputation for academic
excellence, for more than 20 years before she became principal, and she said she has plenty of experience with stressed-out students. But she said she’s never seen students doing drugs inside the school building on West 205th Street.
“Can it happen?” Ms. Reidy said. “I can’t deny that. Have I seen it? No.”
As for the grassy hill across the street and the park behind it, Ms. Reidy said she doesn’t know exactly what goes on there. But she estimated that nine in 10 students who cross the street to Harris Field aren’t doing anything illegal.
“We like to give them the level of freedom that we think they can handle and deserve,” she said. “On a good, nice spring day, if students want to sit in the sun, they do have free periods, they are allowed to be out of the building on their free periods. And we’re trying to create an atmosphere here that is like a college atmosphere.”
Plus, she said, “We can’t move the park.”
The school’s five safety officers are responsible for security at the building, not the park. If, however, administrators notice students lolling on the hill, the principal said, they often march across the street, check whether the children are skipping class, and tell them to go back inside.
Furthermore, Bronx Science doesn’t do on-the-spot drug prevention only. Ms. Reidy said the school has a fulltime substance abuse counselor, who visits every class. Each year, students sit through five sessions with him. He also holds office hours during which he meets with at-risk students.
There’s also a general counseling system, with each of four counselors responsible for about 650 students. Students who are struggling or seemed “unhappy or disenfranchised” are referred to a special guidance counselor for “significantly at-risk students,” Ms. Reidy said.
That guidance counselor takes on between 40 and 60 students. Lewis was one of them starting last month.
Ms. Reidy said she plans to ramp up anti-drug programs targeted at students and to create new awareness programs for parents in the wake of Lewis’s death.
“We have been very active in terms of making our students aware of the dangers of using drugs, helping them through stressful times, helping them deal with issues in a safer way,” she said. “I think the difference perhaps now is we want to reach out to our larger school community and to our parents.”
She said a group from Mount Sinai Hospital is coming to school to talk to children about drugs. Another group is coming from the Training Institute for Mental Health. Also, an extra school psychologist has been working with students, on a pro-bono basis, since Lewis’s death.
The principal said Bronx Science would launch a drug awareness program for parents this fall. In daytime and evening sessions, parents will learn how to spot signs of stress and risky behavior and how to help their teenagers avoid drugs.
“None of us can do it alone,” she said. “Children are in school, but we see them fleetingly. A teacher sees a child in high school for 42 minutes, and that child leaves their class and moves on.
“By all of us coming together, recognizing the danger signs, the warning signals, having a very strong partnership with parents so we can all work together to help each and every student,” Ms. Reidy said, “I think that’s the way we’re going to have to do it. One kid at a time.”