PERKIOMEN — Student bathrooms were again topic in the Perkiomen Valley School District, but this time it’s what’s happening inside of them, not who is using them, that is of concern.
Specifically, the school board is concerned about students vaping and smoking e-cigarettes in the bathrooms and how to stop it. The solution, it would seem, is technology, including cameras and electronic vape sensors.
The good news, Superintendent Barbara Russell told the school board during the April 2 workshop meeting, is that traditional smoking is actually on the decline among high school students, hitting an 11-year-low. She cited federal statistics showing it dropped from 16.5 percent of students in the 2021-22 school year to 12.6 percent in the last school year.
The same is true of vaping, with use among high school students dropping from 14.1 percent to 10 percent over the same period. In all 580,000 fewer high school students nationally are smoking than the year before.
The bad news is that vaping is on the rise among middle school students, with a one-year increase from 4.5 percent to 6.6 percent. Among both groups, e-cigarettes are the most popular way for them to use tobacco, a statistic that has been true for the last 10 years.
For those students who do use tobacco, one in four use it every day, and nine out of 10 use the flavored tobacco available through vapes. That has to stop, said school board member Jason Saylor, who raised the issue at a previous meeting.
On Tuesday, Chief Information Officer Karthik Ganesh reported that for six weeks the district piloted a program putting sensors in bathrooms that have cameras on the outside and “the first day we had a ton of alerts,” many of which led to disciplinary action. “But once word spread, the number of alerts dialed down by a lot.”
Board member Robert Liggett said hoped having the sensors, cameras and ensuing discipline would work as a deterrent and preventative.
Saylor said it is essential that the disciplinary consequences be carried through as well.
“If students don’t hear about their friends getting consequences, it’s no longer going to be something they’re worried about,” he said. “It’s got to be both. The bathrooms have vape detectors and the consequences are being given out, whether is suspension or detention.”
School District Police Chief Dean Miller said officials are seeing “frequencies of vaping in the bathrooms we’re not comfortable with” and that some students are clogging the plumbing by throwing the smoking devices into the toilet to avoid detection.
He said state law and district policy set two levels of searching. An administrator can search a student if there is “reasonable suspicion.” However, when it comes to controlled substances, a school police officer needs “probable cause” as described in the criminal code. As a result, school police “will not be conducting these searches unless absolutely necessary.”
Miller stated, “We prefer to handle it internally, and mentor and guide our kids, but we can go the other route if necessary.”
As long as the substance being smoked does not contain any marijuana or THC, state law states that anyone caught vaping on school property or on a school bus who is 18 or younger is subject to “a summary offense, which means you receive a ticket and you pay a fine. It is not reported as a criminal act and it does not result in a criminal record which follows them.”
However, any vape with marijuana or any other controlled substance “escalates the situation” with potentially more serious and possibly criminal consequences.
The school board plans to vote on purchasing a monitoring system for the bathrooms at its next meeting, scheduled for Monday, April 8.
