Red Solo Cups, a keg, and beer pong is what T.V. and movies would like you to believe makes a great high school party. However, in these shows they rarely if ever show the police coming and arresting the party goer’s and they never show those people having to talk to their parents after just being handcuffed.
This year at least 10 York students have been arrested, a rough number from our police liaison, for underage drinking and countless others have received drinking tickets. According to York Police liaison this is not a rise from any other year as some high school students always choose to live “above the law”.
It’s not the parties getting busted rather the students who are acting out under the influence are the ones getting caught. Sure, there are parties that get caught, but the police say thats not where they catch the bulk of student’s underage drinking.
The real problem here at York is the majority of students who are getting caught for drinking are also athletes.
At the beginning of the year, we are all required to sign the Student handbook. If a student refuses to sign the handbook, then they are not able to attend school.
Though no one reads the handbook it has some important information we all must be aware of. For athletes this important information is the IHS code of conduct, which outlines what is and is not acceptable for an athlete to do.
This year already 30 athletes have been suspended from teams due to breaking the code.
“We have as many athletic code violations this year as total last year” said Mr. Wagner, the new athletic director.
In order to make the code of conduct clear and known to all sports teams, Mr. Wagner has gone around to all fall athletic team and talked to them about making good choices. He hopes that by being aware of the code students will make the right choice in the future.
Also, the administrators hope to put in place student leadership. They believe advice thats from a peer rather than an adult might have more of an impact on students.
This means coaches will be looking to their captains even more than before to be a good example for the underclassman and the team as a whole.
When I talked to any administers, the theme was always the same: “good choices”. So York, think before you act don’t be dumb–make good choices.