JOHNSTOWN —
Johnstown’s Drug and Crime Commission was formed, in part, to help distinguish between the perception and reality of what is happening in our city.
One of its first reports might have done just that.
Commission members Michael Dadey and Mike Artim said last week that the Greater Johnstown School District does have a real problem, but it’s not the one that’s most often associated with it.
Aggressive behavior, not drug and alcohol abuse, is what is plaguing the district, Dadey and Artim said.
They cited the 2011 Pennsylvania Youth Survey, which showed that Greater Johnstown students consume alcohol and hard drugs at a lower rate than the state average and at about the same level as other students when it came to recreational drugs.
That’s good news for all of Johnstown, as the drug and alcohol problems – which are so often blamed for all of the city’s ills – aren’t as problematic in city schools as many may think. Because use of illegal substances at an early age often leads to addiction, which can be a lifelong battle, keeping them out of our schools is an important first step.
Meanwhile, Greater Johnstown students were twice as likely to feel that a physically aggressive response is appropriate in some situations.
That doesn’t mean that they were violent, just that their perception of violence may be different than their peers’.
Changing perceptions about aggressive behavior will be no easy task, but the school already has programs in place that can help reduce the risk factors that students face.
Dadey, the Greater Johnstown High School assistant principal, said that the issues that he sees often start outside of school.
“The problem is really within the community,” he told our Dave Sutor. “(Students) feel the community’s dysfunctional. They feel the community’s disorganized. Some of the things that they’re being taught in the community, as well as the homes, is antisocial behavior.”
At least the commission is helping to bring the problems to light.
“We’re really trying to separate the fact from fiction,” said Artim, Cambria-Rowe Business College’s executive director and chairman of the subcommittee.
That’s an important
first step for the commission. Before the city can begin tackling its problems it first needs to completely understand what they are.
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