Town Hall Meetings
Reports from the Southeast Region
Columbia County School District
Lake City, Florida
The school district hosted a town hall meeting with approximately 150 participants in March and began the program by showing the video, “Smashed.” They then involved youth who had participated in the Class Action prevention program to address questions that were raised by audience members. They had also lined up several community experts (professional counselors, law enforcement, and school officials) to participate in the question and answer session and to keep the conversation going, but found that the students had so much to share with the audience, and were so willing to participate in the discussion, that there was no time to hear from the experts. Several interesting suggestions came out of this first meeting, including the suggestion that “partiers” be included in future town hall meetings, and that students be given a “breathalyzer test” when they enter the prom. The organizational committee and the community have committed to developing an action plan for community-wide prevention, to continuing the prevention programs that are currently being implemented in the schools, and to develop and implement a social norming campaign.
Franklin County School District
Russellville, Alabama
The March town hall meeting drew approximately 80 participants with especially good response from local law enforcement. The local district attorney was the program’s facilitator. The program began with a panel presentation with representation from juvenile justice, the faith community, parents, and the school. They showed the “Smashed” video also to encourage dialog between the panel and parents. Of particular significance was the fact that they shared with parents and other community members the laws regulating parents or adults providing alcohol for minors and the penalties they faced if they were convicted of doing so. They plan to follow-up with another town hall meeting. Next steps include the implementation of a juvenile drug court, teach-ins on the topic of underage drinking, and additional media exposure that might include a regional television station as a partner.
School District of Brevard County
Viera, Florida
The town hall meeting was held on March 28, 2006 and drew 46 participants. The panel of five guest speakers took the podium at a local community college to discuss the issue of underage drinking and its impact on the community and schools. The decision to form a Prom Patrol made up of parents and other adults who would monitor local hotels and motels to locate and notify police about “hotel parties” on prom night was a major decision that came out of the town hall meeting. SADD clubs, active in each local high school, have asked for another town hall meeting to include club members as part of the panels. They are also working on developing more media coverage for their efforts, especially around prom and graduation.
Panhandle Area Educational Cooperative (PAEC)
Chipley, Florida
The PAEC consists of 14 counties in the panhandle of Florida and includes a wide range of community types including urban, suburban, and rural communities with a broad family income range. They also held a town hall meeting with approximately 85 participants from primarily 3-4 of the local school districts represented. The format for the meeting was a panel discussion with representation from law enforcement, the state attorney, the school superintendent, and a parent who had lost a child to driving drunk. The entire panel discussion and resulting question and answer session was filmed in their television studio and a DVD of the program is available. They also have a link to Dish Network television and plan to show it numerous times over the next few months. They have the capability to video stream the presentation and are planning to make it available in that format as well. Next steps are to use the panel speakers as resources for teacher training, follow-up with parent requests that came out of the meeting, rebroadcast of the town hall meeting, and the development of a PSA. In addition to these activities, they hope to post online courses developed by the US Department of Education on their website and offer them for teacher continuing education.
Corbin Independent Schools
Corbin, Kentucky
Corbin Independent Schools hosted a town hall meeting with 75-85 participants on March 28, 2006. Kentucky’s First Lady did PSAs to promote the meeting and they held a press conference announcing and publicizing the event. The format was a panel of experts including school, legal and medical experts. Corbin is a rural community and one of the major problems they face is denial of an underage drinking problem in their community. They showed the video, “This Place” to promote discussion and are now exploring possible follow-up activities.
Clinton County Board of Education
Albany, KY
The school district involved local politicians in a panel discussion to talk about the problem of underage drinking in their community since it is an election year. Extensive publicity was carried out including newspaper and television publicity and flyers stuffed in grocery sacks. The program was planned for a Saturday evening at the local learning center and a car show and cookout was incorporated into the plan for the purpose of drawing a sizeable crowd. The weather did not cooperate, however, and attendance was very low due to heavy downpours during the meeting time. They plan to hold another town hall meeting on May 13, 2006 with the same format, and hope that better weather will allow for better attendance. Several local churches have asked for a showing of the video, “This Place” followed by a program to discuss the problem of underage drinking. They are also using billboards to promote awareness of and action on the problem.
Ohio County Board of Education
Hartford, KY
The school district and a local prevention organization (Together We
Care) hosted a town hall meeting on March 28, 2006 at the facility housing
Together We Care. Approximately 68 people attended the panel discussion.
|
|
