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Teen Vaping Causes Problems at School
by Richard Martin
Teen vaping in schools disrupts both the learning environment and the workload of administrators.
When looking at teens and vaping habits you start to realize the problem they are starting to have by bringing it to school. As of March 2022, a study published by the New York Times found that 13% of high school students vape during school, meaning 2.45 million students vape during school.
When asking teens how they felt about the disruption, or change of school culture, vaping may cause, they all had mixed feelings about it. Some say they don’t care, while others say it's distracting. When asked would they do anything about it, for example tell a teacher most of the participants would often say no to telling a teacher. If vaping is a distraction why would any of the students not grab a teacher because of it. Although it may not be a distraction to everyone it is a major danger to the teens which could lead them to a nicotine addiction. Which still means it yes teenagers vaping in general can cause school education problems. Since vaping is such a big problem, is there a way it can be solved so there is a less possibility of students vaping during the school day?
Why do Teens think school is the place to vape? Is it because of their fellow students not caring, so the teens who vape see no problem with the education going on. Does that mean students actually don’t get any education problems from vaping.Well when asking students if vaping during school causes them a distraught. A lot of them say no, they are unbothered by teens vaping. The only problem is that vaping has an effect on your health which leads to education problems. If vaping isn’t a problem with students why is the administration there a certain reason besides health that causes vaping during school a problem, why even vape during school in the first place.
When asking students why they would vape during school it was either because they wanted to get a high, or because they thought it was cool. One student who wished to remain anonymous said,“I vaped during school just to be cool and my friends would do it, so I would vape with them.”
David Huertado a senior , what he thought about vaping during school. As he say “I have friends at school who vape [and] I think its stupid. Like trying to get a high during school when you are trying to learn, it's pointless and the amount of trouble you can get while vaping is not worth it”. This recurring problem of peer pressure is why students think it’s cool to vape.
When asked what to do about the problem at hand students said the security should be enhanced for the administrators to have an easier time. In regards to solving the problem, Senior said, “we can probably use more vape detectors around the school and especially in the bathroom”.
Another idea that was thrown around was to have administrators stand closer to the bathrooms as for many students keep getting away with walking out of the bathroom. “There could probably have the admin stand more toward the bathrooms so they can patrol it better, because there are too many students getting away with vaping in there” states junior Jasani Baez.
Students seem to think that the bathrooms are the main hotspot for vaping and the security needs to be enhanced around those areas. By asking students around school it’s clear to see that vaping is a problem due to peer pressure to act cool. To fix this problem there needs to be more security around the building.
