Hundreds of North Texas students were sent to disciplinary alternative schools this school year after being caught vaping, a crime that requires harsher penalties under a new state law.
More than a fifth of students assigned to such campuses in eight Dallas County school districts were there because of vaping, according to discipline records analyzed by dallas morning news.
The state mandate has raised questions among education advocates and even among lawmakers who pushed legislation to address e-cigarettes. Some worry that time spent at alternative schools will interfere with students' learning. Public health officials are concerned about the idea of disciplining children who are likely to need help.
“You can't punish yourself to get out of an addiction problem,” said Charlie Gegen, Texas advocacy director for the American Lung Association. “We really want to see more resources for youth education and smoking cessation, and a penal aspect for retailers who sell products to minors.”
news requested data covering the first five months of the school year detailing the number of students sent to Discipline Alternative Education Programs (DAEP) due to vaping.
As of February 1, more than 1 in 10 Dallas ISD students sent to alternative schools had been expelled from their home campus due to vaping. This rate was even more pronounced in school districts such as Duncanville and Mesquite, where about 40% of alternative school placements were for e-cigarettes.
Students are typically sent to these alternative schools if they commit serious crimes, such as making terroristic threats, selling drugs, or assaulting employees. Schools across the state are currently running information campaigns reminding students that “VAPE = DAEP.”
Some DAEP campuses were at capacity, and children were instead placed on in-school suspensions.
More than 1 in 10 Texas high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the past 30 days in 2021, according to statewide survey data. About 6% of middle school students did so.
Dallas County reported its first e-cigarette-related death in 2020, in a teenager.
School officials said it has been difficult to keep up with the influx of e-cigarette use.
Such a device may look like a traditional cigarette. Some look like pens, USB sticks, and highlighters. It's also difficult to tell whether e-cigarettes contain nicotine or THC, a compound found in the cannabis plant, which is an even more serious problem.
Lawmakers enacted this discipline mandate in response to a significant increase in e-cigarette use among minors.
The bill's sponsors have doubts about how it will proceed.
Rep. Ed Thompson (R-Pearland) wanted to give schools more flexibility in how they deal with students caught vaping. He said he was inspired to tackle the issue after hearing that vaping was forcing many teens to attend Juvenile Justice Alternative Education, a more disciplinary school.
His bill was amended during the legislative process to include stricter DAEP mandates. Thompson does not plan to return to Congress until 2025, when he believes lawmakers will revisit vaping discipline rules.
“We want schools to be flexible,” he says. “My intention was never to tie anyone's hands.”
Health authorities' concerns
Some worry about the long-term effects that placement in DAEP will have on students' mental health. How are they doing? mental health?
Dr. Bonnie Halpern-Felscher, professor of adolescent medicine and pediatrics at Stanford University, said the data emerging from the Texas school crackdown on e-cigarettes needs to be studied.
“There are concerns,” said Halpern Felscher, founder and executive director of the Tobacco Prevention Toolkit.
Public health officials say Texas' priority should be preventing teens from using e-cigarettes in the first place. Several programs, such as CATCH My Breath and Truth Initiative, promote lessons on vaping education.
“Not all students understand that these devices contain nicotine and marijuana, which means narcotics,” Halpernfelscher said. “They still think it's just flavored water.”
For those who have already started vaping, advocates advise that the state needs to do more to help teens quit.
“For kids who are addicted to nicotine, providing cessation services seems like the right thing to do. Punishing them and putting them in alternative schools may be going too far,” said Stephen, a professor at the UT Health Houston School of Public Health. Dr. Kelder says. “Yes, students must be held accountable for their actions, but I am confident that most or all of them did not intend to become addicts.”
patchwork approach
Despite the new law, local governments have a patchwork of penalties against e-cigarettes.
For example, a Dallas high school student caught vaping nicotine for the first time faces 20 days of mandatory detention at an alternative school.
If the student completes a substance abuse intervention program, the penalty is reduced to five days. DISD parents are also required to attend an abbreviated half-day orientation. The district holds these sessions on Saturdays.
Keisha Crowder Davis, the district's executive director of student services and supports, said parents and students need to know about the dangers of vaping.
DISD recently overhauled its approach to exclusionary discipline, which excludes students from classes and disproportionately impacts students of color. Still, district officials decided not to pursue ways to circumvent the e-cigarette DAEP mandate.
“We think it's in our best interest in the long run to give children and families the help they need, rather than just saying, 'Oh, we're not going to do it.'” said Crowder-Davis.
But other schools are rejecting e-cigarette laws. These districts are part of the state's “innovation district” system, which allows them to circumvent certain rules.
Houston, for example, has developed an innovation district plan that specifies that e-cigarette use can be addressed on students' home campuses through counseling and other means. In Coppell, the school board decided over the summer to use its innovation district powers to exempt the district from complying with vaping laws.
Coppell school board members expressed outrage at the restrictive nature of the mandate and said they needed flexibility to work with families. Trustees said students need to understand that they cannot vape in school, but trustees questioned whether it was justified for first-time offenders to attend disciplinary school.
In some school districts, the law has caused alternative school classrooms to fill up. In that case, under the new rules, students would instead be suspended from school, and students would often be supervised by a supervisor rather than receiving instruction directly from a teacher.
That was the case for Richardson ISD earlier this year.
As of February 1, there were 108 DAEP referrals related to e-cigarettes in the district, with a total of 365 referrals including all crimes. This is approximately 30 more students than at the same time last year.
As of January, punishment for RISD students caught with nicotine e-cigarettes was reduced from 30 days to 10 days upon completion of a mandatory nicotine education course. People caught with vaping THC will be given 35 days.
RISD officials said the change was made to alleviate capacity issues and to distinguish between the seriousness of THC and nicotine e-cigarettes.
Students caught using e-cigarettes receive a course on the dangers of addiction.
“Fundamentally, we have to follow the law,” said Summer Martin, RISD's director of counseling. “But we are committed to intervening and educating our students.”
The DMN Education Lab deepens our coverage and conversations about pressing education issues that matter to the future of North Texas.
DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative supported by Bobby and Lottie Lyle, Community Foundation of Texas, Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Dee Dee Rhodes, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Meadows Foundation, Murrell Foundation, and Solutions. I am receiving support. Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sidney Smith Hicks, University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control over Education Lab's journalism.
