BELLE — Maries R-2 administrators reported Dec. 21 that the vaping issues at Bland Middle School have significantly decreased, but they will continue taking further steps to eliminate the problem.

“I met with our student councils at both the middle school and the high school,” Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham reported. “They are always very insightful and always willing to share the good, the bad and the ugly.” 

Basham said she had not had an opportunity to go over those conversations with the principals yet.

“For the most part they feel like the year is going well, they are pleased,” Basham said of the two student boards. “The middle school talked a lot about vaping and are still very concerned about their bathrooms. They don’t feel like they can go into the bathrooms because every time they go in there is vaping.”

Basham said she and Belle High School (BHS) Principal Garrett Haslag have discussed getting vaping detectors for the restrooms and she is working to make that purchase.

“I have had two or three superintendents working on giving me more information,” Basham said.

Basham said she wanted to meet with the principles about the issues before moving forward with anything.

“I felt like the principals needed to actually look into it versus me saying ‘the superintendent said it’s great,” she said. “(Haslag) is working on finding one we think will work at the middle school and at the high school. They aren’t super expensive anymore, not as expensive as what the kids are doing to their health. We are looking into doing that.”

Tuesday morning was the students first day back from Christmas break. Basham said she hasn’t ordered any vaping detectors yet.

“We have not ordered anything with vapes detectors yet,” she began. “We are working with a company for price and installation.”

Board Director Amy Kiso asked Basham to share more information with the board as she receives it.

Basham said she was at a superintendents meeting where she asked other superintendents what they do about the issue.

“We were talking about it and he said ‘oh, look, this guy’s vaping!’ and he got a camera picture,” Basham said. “I don’t want a camera picture of anything that’s happening in the restrooms. I don’t want a camera in the bathrooms. That felt weird to me. Ours would be a text versus a picture or more of an alert. It won’t go off in the restroom, it will just alert the admin or whoever is watching.”

Board President Joey Butler II said he could see the headlines now.

“Maries R-2 puts cameras in bathrooms,” Butler said.

Basham said there are cameras in the hallway in front of the bathrooms and as soon as the alert goes off, the administrators will be able to see whoever comes out of the restroom into the hallway.

“The kids are concerned about it enough that they wanted to talk about it,” Basham said. “They want to be able to go to the bathroom without feeling like they are walking into a vape cloud. Even at the high school level, they said they just want to go to the bathroom and not have to worry about it.”

Basham brought up the vaping issue during the October 2021 board meeting when several middle school students, including a fifth grader, were serving suspensions.

Since the October board meeting, administrators have posted signs noting that tobacco use, including vaping, is not allowed on campus.

According to principal reports, Bland Middle School did not have any disciplinary action in November for vaping. Belle High School had one disciplinary action for vaping.