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Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Parkview students to confront dangers of risky behavior
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Parkview High students who belong to a school-sponsored prevention club held a routine meeting last April, shortly after the massacre at Virginia Tech.
Lots of kids wanted to talk about the tragedy - its senselessness, the violence behind it, the shooter’s motivation. More important, though, they tried to move beyond the finger-pointing generally associated with a crime of this nature.
“Talk is fine, said Margaret Shortreed, the club sponsor. “But the thing we try to instill in the students is what actions can we put behind the words. Pointing fingers is the last thing we want to do.”
Preventive action is the mission of Parkview’s SAVE/SADD club, a combination of two national student organizations: Students Against Violence Everywhere and Students Against Destructive Decisions.
Shortreed knew about SAVE before she joined the Parkview staff as a parapro. South Gwinnett High had a chapter when she worked there. Parkview High had a SADD chapter when she got there. With the administration’s blessing, she started a SAVE chapter, then merged the two clubs.
The club hosts Red Ribbon Week, the annual fall drug awareness campaign. And in April, the group runs pledge campaigns that implore students to have a safe prom and grad season.
Every summer, club members take part in a weeklong camp at the Georgia Teen Institute, a leadership training program, held at Oxford College, Emory’s two-year campus. There, students are encouraged to identify a community need. The Parkview club chose high-risk teen behavior - violence, drug and alcohol abuse - as issues to combat.
These topics will be the focus of a town-hall meeting set for 6:45 p.m. Thursday in the school theater. Panelists are Nicole Love, associate director for the Gwinnett Coalition for Health and Human Services; Millie Linville and Mary Kate-Murray, program specialists for Gwinnett United in Drug Education (GUIDE); and Bill Richardson, a founder of “It Won’t Happen to Me,” a teen driver safety awareness program.
You’re invited.
Mandisa Surpris, a Parkview senior who serves as club president, said the prevention club hopes to encourage parents to be more attuned to their kids - what they are doing, who they are doing it with, where it’s taking place.
“Our mission is to spread education about how to live above the influence,” she wrote in an e-mail. “We give students alternative ways to have fun, rather than be involved in ‘destructive decisions.’ ”
For more information about SAVE/SADD or Thursday’s town-hall meeting, contact club sponsor Margaret Shortreed atmargaret-shortreed@gwinnett.k12.ga.us.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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