Fair Haven Union HS: Emily Ringquist, School Resource Officer Sherry Prouty, and Sarah Czarnecki
Three SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) Chapters fromRutlandCountygot together and held a regional conference at the Union Church in Proctor. The three chapters had planned to attend the annual Governor’s Youth Leadership Conference inBurlington, which was cancelled by the group’s funders, and the three chapters decided to hold a small conference on the same day. Thirty students from the three schools attended, along with their advisors- Officer Sherry Prouty from Fair Haven, John D’Esposito fromStaffordTechnicalCenter, and School Nurse Claire Molner, from Proctor.
The Proctor students, led by Proctor SADD leader Taylor Trombley, included Carly Trombley, sisters Carissa, Becca, and Megan Elrick, Colleen Knowles, Keith Piontek, Allyssa Valerio, and Morgan Howard. The Proctor folks, who hosted the event, welcomed their guests and provided training on leadership building for their guests. They also provided lunch and the use of the meeting areas of the Union Church in Proctor.
The Fair Haven Union High School SADD Chapter, which is also called STAND (Students Taking A New Direction) provided their peers with a presentation on the state-mandated “Consent Training” that all faculty and students are supposed to receive. This training focuses on the need to obtain verbal consent from one’s partner every time prior to taking any physical intimacies. A team of students and their advisor from Fair Haven attended the state-mandated train the trainer class, and used the presentation they gave to their peers in Proctor as a “dry run” before presenting to the faculty and fellow students. The student presenters were Emily Ringquist and Sarah Czarnecki from Fair Haven; also attending from Fair Haven was Kaisa Czarnecki. Emily Ringquist shared the fact that when she attended the class, she was outraged that there were laws like this that related to her, but that she was unaware of.
The Proctor students, the Fair Haven students, and the Stafford Technical Center students (Rutland High School’s Megan Barber, Vincent Venturella, Bryan Raiche, Kayla Temple, and Logan Clark, Otter Valley Union High School’s Colton Benoit, Kody Baker, Porsche Lowell, and Zachary Field, Mill River Union High School’s Chelsea Fitzgerald, Rutland Area Christian School’s Aaron Hildebrand, Poultney High School’s Tyler Manning and Alison DeRoy, and Fair Haven Union High School’s Brandon Ellis, Dylan Goad, Stephen Marcoux, and Brian Ward) looked at the most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey statistics for Rutland County. The students voted on which statistics they found most illuminating, and then voted on the top three. They were surprised by the fact that 18% of the respondents reported having used drugs or alcohol prior to their last sexual intercourse. Of course, the role of alcohol and drugs in sexual encounters, both consensual, and non-consensual, is well documented. The students were also amazed by the fact that 30% of 8th graders reported ever having consumed alcohol. The students discussed this a bit, and decided that this might be including sacramental wine and small amounts of alcohol furnished by parents during holidays. The last statistic that the students found intriguing is that in high school, more girls than boys report being non-virgins. A possible explanation for this is that girls often date older boys, who may not be included in this survey. This disparity in ages often makes for an unequal relationship; the relationship, if sexual in nature, may be completely illegal.
The next step for the students is to take one or more of the statistic, and for the students to develop strategies to reduce the incidence of these negative behaviors. This process has already begun.