Partnering With Community to Fight Teen Vaping

Focus: STUDENT HEALTH

The use of e-cigarettes by high school and even middle school students has grown to the level of a public health crisis, and a suburban school district like ours in New York’s Capital Region is no different.

The former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, says ubiquitous e-cigarette use by youth “has reached epidemic proportions.” According to the Centers for Disease Control, the rate of e-cigarette consumption among high school students has escalated from 1.5 percent in 2011 to 27.5 percent in 2019 with many of them vaping on a daily basis.

Like most school districts, the Niskayuna Central School District faces dwindling resources, pushing us to forge partnerships with external groups to provide services that traditionally were supported by our operating budget. We are unable to mount new initiatives within the existing budget without impacting other programs, so we must rely on collaboration with other organizations to take on an issue as pressing as this.

With e-cigarette use troubling educators and the wider community, the school district is partnering with the Niskayuna Community Action Program, known locally as N-CAP, to take action.