Cullman County Schools seeing fewer vaping devices since starting vape court

CULLMAN COUNTY, Ala. (WBRC) - Teen vaping is on the rise again. Drug Watch reports that nearly 20% of teenagers have admitted to vaping regularly in Alabama.

This is why a local school system launched tougher penalties for students caught with the devices on campus. The increased penalties started years ago, and the Cullman County Superintendent says there’s been a significant drop of vaping offenses within the district since vape court was introduced. However, the issue isn’t completely dissolved.

“We have an off-campus site that our students have to go to for alternative school and it was almost a waiting list to go to alternative school because it was so many, and we’ve turned the corner on that considerably and it’s helped out a lot” said superintendent Dr. Shane Barnette. “Right now we don’t know all the repercussions from them vaping and using these harmful chemicals and things so we’re trying to help them when sometimes they don’t want to be helped.”

In 2021, the school district partnered with law enforcement to enforce tougher vaping restrictions by sending students to vape court. Dr. Barnette says it all starts with a citation from the school resource officer.

“Then with that citation, they actually have to show up for court and their parents go with them and they’re either issued a fine which they don’t have to pay if they do an online vaping course: ‘The Dangers of Vaping’ but they’re also issued community service hours,” said Dr. Barnette,

First offense is 16 hours of community service and the second is 24 hours. This is on top of time spent at alternative school. If the student is caught possessing a vaping device, it’s a few days. If they’re distributing, it’s a few weeks.

Dr. Barnette says it’s all to help discourage the illegal and unhealthy habit of their teens.

“We don’t want any of our students harmed,” said Dr. Barnette. “We want them to come get an education and move on, graduate and move on and be successful after us so I would ask parents to help us to not allow their kids to have these and the same message to our students -- if this is something you’re going to do, we don’t want you to do it on our campuses.”

The superintendent says they got the idea from Cullman City Schools and he recommends vape court to any other school districts who are struggling with students vaping.

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