When Toby Gibson started teaching 25 years ago, he’d discover students smoking cigarettes in the restroom. You could tell by the smell whether someone was or had been smoking.
Kids then discovered chewing tobacco. While it did not smell like cigarettes, Gibson would find cups of spent chew.
Now that students have discovered vaping, “You can’t really smell it,” Gibson told the school board. “That’s what makes it challenging.”
Vaping is “probably more (popular) than cigarettes,” he said, with vaping products having been found in the high school, middle school and elementary school.
The fact that elementary students are vaping is “mind boggling,” he said.
High school Principal Megan Marino said vaping is one of the biggest problems she faces.
The vapor from vaping can include nicotine, an addictive drug; heavy metals; and cancer-causing agents, and the labeling of vapes – also known as e-cigarettes – can be misleading or untrue, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Bystanders can breathe in these agents, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
It is illegal in Ohio for anyone to give, sell or distribute vapes, cigarettes, chewing tobacco or cigars to anyone under 21, according to the health department. However, as with cigarettes and alcohol, students find ways to get their hands on vapes.
“The access to getting them (vape products) to students is easier than ever,” said school board member Sarah Kurpe. “They can be purchased by adults and passed to students, which is really different than what many in our generation were used to seeing on the cigarette side.”
Marino noted at the Nov. 20 school board meeting that a vape had recently been confiscated from a student who had stolen it from a parent.
School officials are looking into ways to combat vaping and have studied the advantages and disadvantages of buying vape detectors, which would indicate when certain chemicals found in vaping products are in the air, or metal detectors, which they hope would go off when the metal components of a vape pen would pass through, Gibson said.
The opinions of officials in other districts has been split in terms of the effectiveness of vape detectors, although it seems that more schools have them than don’t, Gibson said.
“Some say, ‘Save your money.’ Some say. ‘They’re working,’” he said.
Officials also must consider the cost. School board member Derek Mihalcin said he attended a conference at which an official from another school reported spending $158,000 on vape detectors.
“They’re pricey,” Gibson agreed.
Gibson said it’s unlikely the district would implement vape or metal detectors – if they decide to at all – before the fall.
