Area high schoolers face the facts
Youth summit focuses on drugs, sex, prejudice and surviving college
A student passes through the halls of Durango High School early this week. Major teenage concerns and issues will be addressed at a forum for and by area high schoolers this Thursday./Photo by Todd Newcomer.

By Will Sands

Local high schoolers are trying to get a grip on drugs, sex, prejudice and other hard realities. This Thursday, a youth summit, entitled "Facing the Facts, will be held by and for high schoolers from Durango, Ignacio and Bayfield. The event is the first of its kind and there's hope that it will be a step toward area teenagers solving their own problems.

The youth summit grew out of Operation Healthy Communities' La Plata County Community Summit, which was held last May at Fort Lewis College. Several Durango High School students attended the summit and came away with a concrete action plan.

Sierra Foster, a DHS sophomore and a facilitator of the youth summit, explained, "A few of us from the high school were selected to go to the community summit last year. From that experience stemmed a desire to have our own summit and address some of our own issues."

Noel Martin, also a DHS sophomore and summit facilitator, added, "We made an action plan at the end of the community summit and decided to bring the high school community together and work on some of these things."

"Facing the Facts" then turned to all La Plata County high schoolers to identify the issues. Surveys were distributed to students in the three county high schools, the Excel Charter School, Grace Prep and home schoolers. Of approximately 3,900 surveys, a total of 2,088 were returned.

Based on the results, the summit will address four crux issues. The topics, all named after songs, are: "Let's Talk About Sex . . . Baby;" "Because I Got High . . . Facing the Reality of Drugs;" "Prejudice: Free Your Mind and the Rest Will Follow;" and "Ready or Not, Here We Come."

Sex was a touchy topic that supervisors were reluctant to see discussed at the summit, according to Operation Healthy Communities director Laura Lewis, who is overseeing the forum. However, the supervisors had no veto power in the student-generated process and the topic remained. Foster explained that summit hopes to fill in gaps that exist in sex education throughout the county.

"I'm really trying to do an educational session and have no limits," she said. "If you have this kind of discussion in a classroom, it's going to be controlled."

The sex forum will discuss topics including contraception, STDs and date rape. There will also be a 15-year-old DHS student, who is a new mother, on the panel. Foster noted that while there is an abstinence-only program at DHS, other sex education is pretty limited. At Bayfield High School, there is no sex education program.

"It's part of life and nature, and it's going to happen," Foster said. "We want to encourage people to be responsible and make their own decisions."

Drugs will be another hot topic at Thursday's youth summit. Discussion will focus on the toll drugs are taking on the local community, with an emphasis on methamphetamine. Panelists will include members of law enforcement, teatment providers as well as a recent graduate who became addicted to meth while attending DHS.

"We're trying to educate, prevent and have students recognize warning signs," Martin said. "We're going to try to hit on everything."

The survey results revealed that meth usage is on the rise among students. Martin noted that the drug can be manufactured in the home, is the fastest growing drug in the west and the fast growing in Durango.

Sierra Foster, left, and Noel Martin, both facilitators of the upcoming youth summit, stand outside the front entrance of Durango High School early this week./Photo by Todd Newcomer.

The survey results revealed that meth usage is on the rise among students. Martin noted that the drug can be manufactured in the home, is the fastest growing drug in the west and the fast growing in Durango.

"We're trying to prevent it from hitting Durango any harder than it already has," she said.

The forum on prejudice will recognize that work is underway in the county and school district to combat racism. The youth summit will examine all forms of prejudice and do it in an interactive manner.

"It's not going to be exclusively racial," said Foster. "It's all sorts of things ranging from gender to height and weight."

The fourth topic, college retention, is perhaps a bit out of place at a summit with other topics like sex, drugs and prejudice. However, on average only half of freshman college students come back for a second year. And the student survey results pointed to a strong desire to have this issue explored.

Lewis noted, "By the numbers, that was one of the top vote getters. The survey showed that kids want to know how to increase the odds."

The core of the youth summit and what the facilitators hope will attract hundreds of their peers is that it is student run. Lewis explained that the high schoolers agreed at the outset that the summit had to be on their terms.

"We're welcoming adults but only at the introduction and the summary," she said. "That was really important to the students, that this be theirs and on their own terms."

Martin noted, "Most of the kids don't want to hear this stuff from adults."

To get on their own terms, the students are also hosting the summit off of school property at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. "We're trying to do it away from the school," Foster said. "Sex and drugs are timely subjects, but if we do it in the school, what we say can be restricted."

Foster, Martin and Lewis are all hoping for hundreds of students to attend the summit on Thursday and they're hoping the event with stimulate thought and change.

"I really don't know what to expect," Foster said. "I'm not sure that there will be change, but at least people will be talking about these issues."

And if people are talking about the issues awareness will spread, according to Martin.

"We're hoping that people who come out of the summit will not only learn something but also spread it to the community," she said. "This is a chance to make a difference."


 

 

 

 


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