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Thursday, March 1, 2007

White House takes notice of Dallas ISD’s cheese fight

By Pegasus News wire

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Publicity about the fight against the use of the drug called cheese in some Dallas schools has caught the eye of the White House.

A policy analyst with the Office of National Drug Control Policy visited Dallas in February to learn about the ISD’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools/Abstinence Education Program.

Dallas ISD is one of the largest urban school districts in the U.S. using a federal grant for drug testing without making testing mandatory. Parents of middle and high students received information about the free drug-screening test in the student enrollment packet in the fall of 2006. Parent and student written consent is required before the test can be given.

With a sample of a student’s saliva, the presence of specific drugs is detected. Test results are confidential and are not shared with school staff, administrators, and police and do not become part of the student’s permanent record.

The district’s voluntary student drug-testing program will test about 15,000 middle and high school students this school year.

In January 2007, the Office of National Drug Control Policy reported that DFW in general "serves as a drug distribution and transshipment area. Drug smuggling and transportation are dominated by major Mexican trafficking organizations. These groups are poly-drug organizations smuggling methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and marijuana to the Dallas/Fort Worth area for distribution in the Eastern, Southeastern, and Midwestern United States."

Photo not privided by DISD or Office of National Drug Control Policy

From the White House Historical Association on a simpler cheese time : "A New York dairy farmer sent President Jackson an interesting gift: a 1,400-pound cheese. Jackson left it in the Entrance Hall of the White House to age for two years. In 1837 the President invited the public to come and eat it. The cheese was gone in two hours, but the stain and smell in the Entrance Hall lasted for a long while."

Source: Dallas ISD, Office of National Drug Control Policy

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Comments

afarinas Anonymous

Don't mean to gripe, but I'm a teacher at the high school that unfortunately boasts THE most cheese cases in Dallas. The subtle tongue in cheek commentary made here is in bad taste. Maybe from afar it's easy to chuckle, but when you've seen students buckle under the influence, writhing in heroin-induced seizures, foaming at the mouth, eyes rolled back, it isn't so funny. Local detox/ rehab centers don't have enough beds to accommodate cheese cases, so my students often choose to risk their lives rather than go through the trouble to get help only to be denied.

1 year, 6 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Blair Lovern Staff

I posted this story. The subtle tongue in cheek commentary was not to belittle the fight against drug use in school, I apologize if you took it that way. To the contrary, it was to only illustrate how I wished the mention of cheese still only meant "food" and not young lives wasted. In fact, I added the paragraph at the end about drug use in general in Dallas, because that's not something the Dallas ISD is going to tell you.

I wish you well, afarinas. You have an important job teaching kids whose lives are in an unnecessarily precarious spot because of this scourge.

1 year, 6 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

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