An Okanagan School District says it is seeing success in addressing the rising issue of students vaping in school washrooms.
“We’ve certainly put a little bit of a bite into it,” Alan Stel, principal of Summerland Secondary School told Global News.
“And we’re not the first school. I think it has been experimented with in other districts, but certainly this (is a) first for the Okanagan and for our school district.”
Stel said the project started when some parents and students approached the school district with concerns and the district asked if they could install some vape detectors in two of the bathrooms.
“They look a lot like CO2 detectors or smoke detectors, little cages around them,” he added. “And then outside there’s an alarm, like a light that flashes. And we match that up with a camera so we can track who is going in and going out.”
Stel said while these detectors are expensive and they have received mixed reviews from students, they wanted to create a harm-reduction opportunity so that all the students felt safe in those spaces.
The Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey (CTNS) 2022 data showed that vaping rates have remained relatively stable since 2019 with around 14 per cent of youth aged 15 to 19 reporting having vaped in the past 30 days. A majority of youth (69 per cent) who vaped in the past 30 days had never tried a tobacco cigarette in their life.
Stel said the next step for his school is to go back to the board and get their approval to install the detectors in the other bathrooms.
“I think the cost really is nominal if you look at the long-range because it really takes away from the management of those spaces as well and moves away from that punitive piece,” he added.