Just say blow.
That’s the attitude of a growing number of St. Johns County students when it comes to vaping, Superintendent Tim Forson cautioned at the first school board meeting of the academic year.
While he lauded a smooth and encouraging start to the new term, Forson sounded the alarm on the practice and vowed to make it a priority.
“Parents may not be fully aware of just how much use — recreational use in the eyes of a child — is going on,” Forson said. “I know our principals and our schools can tell you how much it is. Because they deal with it everyday.”
Vaping is “higher risk than students see it to be,” Forson noted. “We know it’s higher risk because the absolute lack of control of what is in the substance that is being vaped. And that is very dangerous.”
The board heard that kids are obtaining the devices with relative ease — either through direct purchase with fake IDs, older siblings, and school-based dealers.
“We saw a huge increase not just in vaping over the last few years,” Forson said. “But it’s also…distribution within the walls of the school…That ease of access is something we really have to get a handle on.”
The superintendent told the board that most if not all county kids will be offered a vape at some point.
He said the county should help kids develop an reflexive way to reject the temptation.
“When it happens, because it will happen, somebody will approach them at some point in time, you have that response prepared,” he said. “You don’t even have to think about it.”
Forson presented a new public service announcement on the perils of vaping to the board, along with a three-pronged campaign to combat the issue — education, accountability and awareness.
“How do you bring awareness to parents that this is happening,” he said. “That it could be happening to their own children and they’re not aware of it. And the awareness that what seems not real harmful could be extremely harmful.”
