By Patrick Adrian
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
NEWPORT — Newport schools will show their spirit next week by adding a healthy splash of red to their traditional school colors, in a weeklong celebration and promotion of safe, healthy and drug-free living.
Newport’s schools — Richards Elementary and Newport Middle-High School — will celebrate an additional Spirit Week during the school week of Oct. 25 in recognition of Red Ribbon Week, a national campaign to teach and reinforce drug prevention.
Like traditional school spirit weeks, each school day next week will be paired with a particular theme that invites students to creatively dress in accordance.
For example, Monday, Oct. 25, will be Neon Day, “because their futures are so bright,” said Nissa Ridley, a counselor at Newport Middle School.
Newport’s school counselors, including Ridley, Jenna Brown, and Rachael Loseby, all collaborated to bring a Red Ribbon Week celebration to the school district.
According to Loseby, a Substance Abuse Prevention counselor at Newport High School, the district has not had a drug-prevention campaign of this level in at least five years.
Loseby, who joined the school district this year, said she was “taken aback by just how prevalent the substance misuse is here,” particularly among parents.
“So that was a wake-up call for me and a big motivator to do Red Ribbon Week,” Loseby said.
For Newport’s counselors, addressing drug prevention through a Spirit Week helps to excite the school community and engage the issue in a positive and community-centered approach.
“Spirit Weeks gets more kids participating in it and even to know why they are participating,” Ridley said. “And I think it brings some of the community to the school and a culture of caring.”
Brown noted that Spirit Weeks allows those students with a reluctance to join a conversation about drugs to still participate through their thematic dress or other activities.
“It helps get kids more interactive in what’s going on to create a more positive and fun experience, so we’re not just talking about the more negative piece,” Brown said.
Each school has activities scheduled for the week, ranging from educational discussions to fun projects.
Students at Newport Middle School will participate in a national photo competition by creating a school-wide photograph based on this year’s Red Ribbon Week theme “Drug-free looks like me.” At Richards Elementary, classrooms will have a door-decorating contest, with the winning classroom to receive a popcorn party. At Newport High School, students will create a collaborative “wall” composed of written personal experiences involving a negative impact of drugs and alcohol, whether in their own use or in a relationship with someone using substances.
High school students can also earn small prizes for completing at least three activities during the weeks, from a list of options that include activity sheets to signing or having one’s parents sign a drug-free pledge.
The counselors said participating in Red Ribbon Week is aimed to be a conversation starter for the district’s broader, ongoing program to promote healthy lifestyles and drug prevention.
“We want students to really buy into what we are doing, because we want it to have a purpose rather than a one-week, check off the [activity] event,” Brown said.
The counselors hope by instilling a fun, positive experience around drug-prevention, students will be more receptive to more in-depth discussions about the dangers and adverse effects of substance misuse, Brown explained.
The National Red Ribbon Campaign began in 1985 under the National Family Partnership, an advocacy and education group for drug prevention. The campaign originated in response to the murder of Enrique Camarena, a federal Drug Enforcement Agency agent who was abducted, tortured and killed by a Guatemalan drug cartel in 1985. Camarena’s murder encouraged outraged parents and youth in communities across the country to wear a red ribbon as a symbol of their commitment to raise awareness about the destructiveness of drugs.
The National Family Partnership sponsored the first National Red Ribbon Celebration in 1988.
reporter @eagletimes.com
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