Policy JICH & JICH-R - Drug and Alcohol Use by Students 

Policy JDDA & JDDA-R - Student Involvement with Drugs and Alcohol 

Advantages of the Denver Public Schools Substance Use Policy are that it provides interventions for counseling or treatment programs, educates students about substance abuse, and provides "parent/community discussions on student substance use/intoxication and teacher trainings on supporting students who are abusing substances."  Disadvantages of this policy is that education around substance use is only provided to "students at risk" which infers students most likely have to be referred by an adult or must first violate the substance abuse policy to receive education about these illegal substances.  Another disadvantage is that interventions and consequences are at the discretion of individual schools and disciplinary leaders within those schools.  This creates confusion as it is unclear what happens when a student violates the policy and there is no commitment to ensuring fairness and equality across the school district.

One advantage of the Boulder Valley School District Substance Use Policy is that it clearly states what the consequences are for violating the policy and there is a regular review process to "determine the effectiveness of the district's drug and alcohol abuse prevention program, to implement required changes, and to ensure that disciplinary sanctions and referral for treatment or counseling are consistently enforced.”  It also offers education around substance use to all students, not just those at risk.  A disadvantage of this policy is that is does not offer any teacher training to help identify vaping devices or students who might be under the influence of illegal substances while at school.  Another disadvantage is the school district does not offer any support to parents whose students might be using.