Liaison panel to convene, hear closed campus, drug ‘diversion’ presentations

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Benicia City Council-School Board Liaison Committee will convene Thursday for the first time since September, hearing and discussing reports on a variety of topics including the possibility of closing Benicia High School’s campus.

That’s not a new issue, having been raised most recently in an October presentation before the Benicia Unified School District Board of Trustees by Benicia High Principal Damon Wright.

On Thursday, the joint panel will hear “an update of where we are,” Superintendent Janice Adams said this week.

“There is a process. Mr. Wright is meeting with students, staff, and parents to talk about this.”

Wright and Vice Principal Ron Wheat will be on hand to give an updated presentation to the panel.

The committee also will hear a report from the Benicia Police Department on the School Suspension Drug Diversion Program.

“We met recently with the school district on the Healthy Kids Survey,” Benicia police Lt. Mike Greene said Tuesday.

“During the presentation we started having breakout discussions about kids and drug offenses and school suspensions associated with that.”

Greene said the idea of collaboration between the police department and the school district was raised, with the goal to ensure that drug and suspension issues were handled appropriately.

He said the foremost concern was and will continue to be what’s in students’ best interest.

Greene said in the past, when a student was suspended from school they would simply go home, and there was a good chance the student would be unsupervised — since his or her parents would be at work — and continue the behavior that led to the suspension in the first place.

“The current principal (Wright) was used to a different system where, instead of just sending kids home on a suspension, it was either an on-campus suspension, or some type of negotiated agreement was made where they would go to a one-day drug counseling class,” Greene said. “They would tailor the suspension to what the offense was.

“We’re trying to get something similar off the ground here in Benicia,” Greene said. “We’re in discussion with the school to collaborate on this.”

Greene and Wright will give the presentation together.

If You Go
The City Council-School Board Liaison Committee meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. in Room 2 at the Community Center, 370 East L St.