Can Closing OPRF Campus End Student Drug Use?

Nothing spells break better for students at than going off campus for lunch.

It is a sacred time of the day, say students like junior Gabe Kahn, who go off campus three or four times a week, especially during the spring and early fall “to get some fresh air.”

Like many other students, Kahn often goes to , a stone's throw away from campus.

“I feel more free when I can leave school,” he said.

Other students say they go home with their friends for lunch or find a private spot to chill from the stresses and noise of a school packed with 3,200 other students.

But some parents and neighbors of the school, 201 N. Scoville Ave., say that’s not all the kids do during lunch — there’s smoking, noise and drug dealing.

Now, like so many other attempts in the past, they’re urging school administrators to remove the school’s “open campus” policy, which allows sophomores, juniors and seniors to leave for a lunch break.

Close The Campus, Close The Drug Connection?

Doing so would help choke off the supply of drugs to students during the school day, according to some parents.

Mary Therese Foley, who lives across the street from the school, said at a recent special Oak Park-River Forest High School District 200 meeting she’s watched smoking and drug dealing from a window in her house and has called police.

“This is not about taking away privileges. It’s to protect kids from danger. All it would take is one drug deal gone bad and some youngster’s gonna get shot,” said Foley, who sends one daughter to nearby Fenwick and plans to enroll a son there as well. “If we make more of an effort to cut the supply, dealers will go somewhere else.”

Foley and other parents at the forum said closing campus would be all about student safety.

But a number of parents disagreed.

John McIlwain, whose freshman son goes to OPRF, said closing campus would penalize all students for the actions of a few. Besides, he said, his son tells him there only are a small number who actually do drugs.

“I don’t think closing campus is going to change that behavior,” he said.

Or as OPRF freshman Erich Luepke aptly put it at the forum: “It’s about personal freedom versus security."

It’ll be up to the OPRF school board to assess and decide whether to end the open campus tradition as a way to influence behavior.

Closing the campus outright is just one proposal on the table.

Officials will also look at a plan, proposed by OPRF principal Nate Rouse, allowing juniors and seniors to earn the privilege of going off-campus for lunch, although there would be some restrictions.

That suggestion earned praise from a sextet of sophomores eating at Tasty Dog. A number of the teens said it would help students want to improve their behavior.

One student, Hannah Srajer, called it logical.

“It’s a happy medium; it’s what the kids want and what the parents want,” said Srajer, her friends nodding in agreement.

Besides, the group said, prohibiting students from leaving campus going to erase any drug problem.

“This is a community, not a school problem,” said Quinn Cowell, one of the students outside the restaurant.

A Possible Break From Traditon

From the early 1970s to the 1996-1997 school year, students could leave campus for lunch with few exceptions. Students could only re-enter at the main Scoville and mall entrances, district officials said.

During the 1996-97 school year, neighbors and the community began lobbying for revocation of open lunch over concerns about fights and gang activity, district officials said.

There was, however, no mention of a drug issue at the time.

A pilot program began the following year requiring freshmen to eat lunch in the North cafeteria, a policy that’s been in place ever since.

Community concerns over student behavior and safety re-surfaced again this winter as a grassroots organization called the Parent Action Committee began holding meetings on how to curb drug and alcohol abuse by OPRF students.

One method arising from those discussions was to close down campus. It also became an issue during the recent OPRF school board election.

OPRF is one of four schools in the 14-school West Suburban Conference of the Illinois High School Association with any type of open campus lunch policy.

Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn opens campus for sophomores, juniors and seniors. York Community High School in Elmhurst allows seniors with good standing to leave the campus for lunch. And Lyons Township North High School in La Grange allows juniors and seniors who live less than two blocks from campus to go home during lunch.

All of the other schools in the conference have closed campus.

The school board intends to address open versus closed campus during a meeting of the Policy, Evaluation and Goals committee at 7:30 a.m., May 19 in the board room.

The school board could make a decision later this month or in June so a plan can be in place before the start of school registration in mid-August, District 200 Superintendent said.