Some up in arms over National Guard's class time

By Garth Guibord

The Sandy Post, Oct 3, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (55 Reader comments)

marcus hathcock / sandy post

National Guard personnel teach Sandy High School students team-building activities while propagating an anti-drug message. Some parents don't like the fact that the Guardsmen are in full uniform, but personnel argue that firefighters or police officers would do the same.

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A group of Sandy High School freshmen faced a daunting challenge: get everybody over an “electric fence,” and only three students could touch it.

That scenario forced the teens to embrace teamwork and think critically to get the job done.

Luckily, the electric fence wasn’t real — it was a tarp — but the true-to-life lessons taught in the series of exercises put on by the Oregon National Guard last month were.

While some may have seen the exercises as a useful tool for the new generation of Pioneers, the presence of a National Guard soldier in full uniform rattled parent Julie Slavick.

“I started calling some parents and asked them if they knew anything about it,” said Slavick. “I talked to 12 people and nobody knew what was going on. Some of them had been out of class for two days, others for four days. Every parent I spoke with thought it was a little strange.”

Slavick took her complaint to school administrators and they excused her son, Victor, from participating in the exercises. Instead, Victor spent the time in the school library working on his homework, which suited him fine.

“I got all my homework done while other people were just doing the activities,” said Victor.

While Victor studied, his classmates worked together on a variety of activities, including moving a group of people through a series of hoops, building a PVC pipe tower without being able to speak and a modified ropes course.

“You have to think not just about what you see, but in deeper ways to actually get the answer,” said freshman Chase Fredrickson, 14, of Sandy. “Basically, think beyond what you see.”

“The major skill it helped me increase was social skills,” said freshman Cory Hanson, 14, of Sandy. “I didn’t know anyone there except my friends and that just helped me get a whole bunch of (new) friends.”

“It’s a way of saying that high school will be fun,” said freshman Brittney Huntington, 14, of Sandy. “And then all the work begins, I guess.”

Freshman Focus

District officials have brought in the National Guard for each of the past three years as part of the Freshman Focus class. The exercises are done at the beginning of each school year — this year they were held between Monday, Sept. 10, and Thursday, Sept. 13, and between Tuesday, Sept. 18, and Friday, Sept. 21.

The exercises also are designed to introduce the new students to high school and to nurture the ability to withstand peer pressure — especially when it comes to drugs.

“We’re trying hard to create some sort of personalization right off the bat, personalize the school environment,” said Lon Welsh, the Small Learning Communities Grant Director at the high school and who arranges for the National Guard participation. “We thought we could accomplish two things at once: the kids get to see the teachers in a little different light and the kids get to see themselves in a different light.”

“It’s drug-prevention training, but it does a lot more than drug prevention,” said Staff Sgt. Teresa Whalen with the Oregon Army National Guard, who serves as a facilitator of the program. “It’s a great team builder and Sandy likes to use it at both.”

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