Majuro Middle School officials said in an interview Thursday that government is not doing its part to prevent illegal sales of vodka to 12-to-14-year-old students during school hours.
The school has taken action by recently dismissing 13 students for drunken behavior on the campus. But principal Lenn Lenja, eighth grade Parent Teacher Association president Carter Mijjena and other officers and staff of the middle school said they are extremely concerned that students can still buy alcohol from a nearby takeout store.
The dismissal of the 13 students, mostly seventh graders, has reduced the problem at the middle school by sending a message to the students about drinking during school hours. But middle school staff and administrators report seeing students from other nearby schools drunk or drinking on campus. The schools that share the campus with the middle school include the National Vocational Training Institute, the GED (high school equivalency) Program and Marshall Islands High School. Majuro Middle School is the largest middle school in the country with about 560 students.
Mijjena said the school first complained to the national police last October that a nearby store was selling alcohol to students during school hours. He and Lenja said that when the students were caught, they identified the store in question.
“The parents want to close the store, but the police say they have no authority to do this and have to wait for the courts,” Mijjena said.
But although national police Detective Randall Mckay sent a memo to the Attorney General¹s office last December entitled “Chinese store selling liquor to underage,” there has been no further activity from the national government.
Lenja explained that when teachers first encountered students drunk on campus, they were called in to the office and confronted. “We asked them where they bought the vodka and they told us,” he said. They were reprimanded but not dismissed after this first infraction of the rules.
“Then they drank alcohol again and we had no choice but to fire them.”
The continued access of students in the area to alcohol from neighborhood stores greatly concerns the PTA at the school, Mijjena and Lenja said.
There is an obvious lack of enforcement of national government laws that are negatively affecting these schools, they said.
The majority of the 13 students dismissed were female, and most were in the seventh grade.
