RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, the Joint House-Senate Task Force on Ice and Drug Abatement found that early intervention and treatment of adolescents should be the highest funding priority and that school-based treatment programs are successful in returning students to a drug-free lifestyle; and

WHEREAS, in 2004 the Senate approved Senate Resolution No. 111 which requested the Department of Education to explore the feasibility of alternative schools or dropout centers for adolescents who suffer from drug addiction; and

WHEREAS, the current public school policy regarding students who are substance abusers is zero tolerance; and

WHEREAS, under the zero tolerance policy, students are merely suspended from school and given lesson plans to fulfill their school work during suspension; and

WHEREAS, the first six to twelve months is vital for a newly sober adolescent, and reports demonstrate that approximately eighty percent return to regular drug use one year after treatment; and

WHEREAS, the high rate of recidivism correlates to the sober adolescent's return to the same school environment that may have caused their drug addiction; and

WHEREAS, providing the newly sober adolescent with a new environment to develop new peers and stronger life skills in the first months of sobriety enhances their chances of remaining sober; and

WHEREAS, the State will realize a cost savings for assisting adolescents in remaining out of the juvenile justice system; and

WHEREAS, the task force recommended that the Department of Education explore the feasibility of alternative schools for adolescents suffering from substance abuse; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-third Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2005, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Department of Education is requested to expand alternative schools to include students who suffer from substance abuse; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to Superintendent of Education and the Chairperson of the Board of Education.

Report Title:

Students, Alternative Schools, Substance Abuse