With PV giving out financial rewards to students who give out information about events, such as the recent threat or last year’s graffiti incident, the school should pay students for evidence of students vaping on school property.
The school has taken steps to help reduce vaping on school grounds by warning the students of its health risks. There are many posters around the school, especially near the bathrooms, showing the dangers of vaping to try to influence students to stop. There have also been attempts by the staff to catch vapers red-handed. “There are coordinated cycles of checking the bathrooms every day,” said Deputy Jamey Fah, “Some staff and I try to make sure nothing fishy is happening in the bathrooms and scare away students who were planning on it.”
Although these steps are warning students of the risks of vaping, the administration has not significantly reduced the amount of vaping done in school bathrooms. Many students still encounter these vapers on a daily basis. “I see vapers in the bathroom everyday, occupying the stalls to try to hide the fact that they are vaping, but it is still always so obvious,” said senior Mitchell Strobbe, “They make it hard to use the toilets, but they never get caught because no one wants to be known as a snitch.”
By giving money incentives for evidence of vapers, students would prefer money over being known as a snitch by their fellow peers.
Other than their close friends, many students would turn in vapers, even for a small incentive. This method could have an immediate impact on the landscape of the bathrooms; many vapers would be very intimidated by the number of motivated crime catchers in the bathroom and choose to not vape on school grounds.
However, there are some problems with the concept. Evidence is needed to accuse students of vaping; however, the main destination for vaping is in the bathrooms, where it is illegal to take pictures. If the only evidence that the snitch has is the name of the vaper, it would not be sufficient as it is only one person’s word over the other, which could lead to a lot of false reporting just for money.
A way to partially solve this issue is by searching the vapers if the snitch is confident with their report. If the search is carried out without the vaper knowing beforehand, the possessors of vapers would be caught with the device. Even if this method does not catch the vapers who do not own a vape, it would still have a big impact.
If the school is serious about curing their vaping epidemic, paying students to snitch would definitely have an immediate impact.
