FLEMINGSBURG — Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky CEO Ben Chandler and Emily Schott, director of communications for Kentucky Medical Association visited Fleming County and Bracken County Schools to present signage that will be on display at each school in the district, denoting them as a tobacco-free campus.
According to Chandler, the foundation and KMA are providing tobacco-free schools signage to all Kentucky school districts that have adopted tobacco-free policies since April 2019, under the Tobacco Free Students program.
“If we were going to curb tobacco use, and there’s obvious reasons why we want to do that — because of cancer, because of heat disease, because of all of the problems tobacco causes — we want to curb its use,” he said.
This new policy complies with a law passed during the 2019 legislative session, which did not provide any funding for signage. Seeing that Kentucky leads the nation in tobacco usage, according to Chandler, this policy and signage help to separate students from the habit and potentially begin living healthier lives.
“We went to the legislature with the view that if we could curb that use in schools, amongst young people, and get them started on the right foot and change the norms amongst younger people, we would go a long way toward reducing tobacco use in the state.”
Fleming County Superintendent Brian Creasman said the district will receive the signs by the beginning of next year, and they will be placed on all exterior doors and at all athletic fields.
“The more we can educate students, and I think Chandler mentioned it right, we re-establish the norm that it’s not good to smoke, not good to use e-cigarettes or anything like that. It’s really educating and also educating about a life — we’re extending your life by encouraging them not to smoke and use those kind of things.”
Mainly seen in schools in this day and age is the use of e-cigarettes by students, which Creasman said is appalling especially at the middle school level.
“Nationally what you’ve seen, for the first time in 30 years use of tobacco and nicotine has skyrocketed because of the use of these e-cigarettes,” he said. “So that’s not a trajectory that we want to keep — we had it going down nationally.”
Opting in as a tobacco free school district and placing signs to advertise that will be a work in progress in encouraging a healthier habit, according to Creasman, although there is already progress being made when it comes to deterring tobacco use at sporting events.
“It’s still going to take a lot of work especially because people with these e-cigarettes and also with smoking — they’ll sneak and try to do it — and we just have to educate them,” he said.
On top of placing signs throughout the schools, Creasman said announcements on Facebook will better educate the public of the school district’s tobacco free status.
