For five years, freshmen have given up roughly three homerooms each year for TryPOD leaders to teach them about the dangers of excessive drinking. They learned facts about safe alcohol consumption and practiced ‘carefrontations.’ But this year, things will be different.
Freshmen will no longer see TryPOD (Try Putting off Drinking) in their homerooms. The duties of alcohol awareness education are being taken over by Link Crew beginning this school year.
“I liked TryPOD’s message,” Connor Rogan, senior and former member of TryPOD, said. “It’s a good [message] to spread to freshmen, but they did not learn a lot.”
According to KHS administrators, one of the contributing factors to the switch from TryPOD to Link Crew was the decision to give freshmen more homeroom work time. This switch will allow Link Crew leaders who have already established connections with freshmen to begin educating them on the dangerous effects of binge drinking.
“It is better now because [freshmen] will be with people they already know,” Rogan said. “They have more of a ‘role model’ figure to get information from.”
In the transition of sponsorship, Dr. Michael Havener, principal, said TryPOD also had some conflicts with budgeting.
“Annual sponsorship from the PTO is about $2,000, and some of that was for TryPOD,” Havener said. “They funded it for about three or four years and they’re just not able to fund it anymore.”
During these discussions, Andrea Sullivan and Julie Rice, Link Crew co-sponsors, said they could possibly take over TryPOD’s duty, the teaching of alcohol awareness.
“Link Crew is all about positive attitudes, building character and building a community,” Sullivan, business teacher, said. “And [alcohol awareness] encompasses the core of a healthy lifestyle as well.”
Ben Mohler, sophomore, liked the idea of TryPOD, but did not like how he lost time in homeroom when the TryPOD leaders came to teach their lessons.
“I thought it was a good program, but it really cut into homeroom,” Mohler said. “And with the Link Crew stuff and random assemblies, a lot of freshmen didn’t really have time to do work and visit teachers.”
Rice, Family and Consumer Science teacher, also understands the amount of time TryPOD took from students.
“The first year TryPOD was here I had freshmen, and I know the kids did not like it taking up their whole homeroom,” Rice said. “It was very hard for [student volunteers] to go and teach random freshmen they didn’t know, which is where we are trying to make alcohol education work, because our juniors and seniors know these freshmen.”
Abby Viers, sophomore, said it was hard for students to connect with TryPOD. Viers also thinks Link Crew will be better for the job of alcohol awareness education because of the personal connections freshmen will have with their Link leaders.
“I think this will be a lot better,” Viers said. “They will be in an environment where they know people already and where [learning] isn’t forced.”
For more information about Link Crew, visit their website:
http://www.boomerangproject.com/high-school-transition
