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I Opinion
Not wishing to have anyone in this county left with the impression that adopting still another drug policy will, by itself, solve anything, I would like in this paper to cite a little history and to show that policies and their implementation are two entirely different cats. I know this from my own experience for I have been there — as you will see.
We first find the Rappahannock School Board publicly adopting a “student behavior” policy as such in 1961. (Before that, apparently, verbal dos and don’ts from teachers and from home for the students sufficed. They seemed to when I was a young lad in the schools here).
By 1967 (the county history of Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Johnson Jr. records) a more formal “effort” to discourage use of alcoholic beverages on school property was undertaken by the School Board.
In 1971, the first formal “Policy on Drug Abuse” was adopted and the following year the Judge of the 7th Juvenile Court praised the School Board and commended the new policy regarding illegal drugs as “the first and only intelligent, clear, and thought-out approach I have seen.” (Don’t be too hasty, your Honor; there is a long and trying road yet ahead for our School Boards in Rappahannock!).
In 1978, six years later, the Board adopted yet another “Policy on Drugs.”
On July 1,1979,1 took the Wakefield seat on the School Board, my ears overfilled with private suggestions from other members about the urgent current problems and how I should vote on them to help the Board restore its credibility in the county. There was little to surprise me in this situation; it was simply worse than I had imagined or expected.
Everyone in the county was aware of the rather bizarre events which had transpired in the proceeding months; your newspaper was full
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