Best Blogs: AAP Meetings, Teen Substance Abuse and More

Did you miss some of the blogs this week on McLean Patch? Each week, we'll round them up in one convenient place for you.

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Here are the highlights from blogs that ran this past week.

"Substance Abuse: A Public Health Issue"

• Dr. William Hauda, a Unified Prevention Coalition board member, writes it is not enough to recognize and treat substance abuse; we need to stop it from happening.
• "Our teens remain the most important group to address in combating substance abuse.  One of the most consistent findings among drug users is that the introduction to drugs has been almost exclusively through friends. 60 percent of 12th graders report that they got prescription narcotics from a friend or relative."
• Read the full post here.

"AAP Meetings an Agonizing Success"

• Ryan McElveen, a at-large Member of the Fairfax County School Board, writes about the contentious Advanced Academic Placement (AAP) meetings that were held last week. 
• "But if there was one good news story to emerge from the sometimes-heated AAP meetings, it was this: staff and the School Board heard, loudly and clearly, from AAP parents who, on the whole, are pleased with the education their children receive in Fairfax County Public Schools, and they don’t want to see any drastic changes to the opportunities the county provides. Most important, the high turnout at the meetings proved that many of our parents are fully committed to ensuring that their children receive a high-quality education, no matter what school they attend."
• Read the full post here. 

• Ivy Main of the Virginia Sierra Club writes this week about how "Criticism of Dominion Virginia Power has been steadily mounting over the $76 million dollars the company has been awarded as a “bonus” for complying with Virginia’s voluntary renewable energy law."
• "Dominion has succeeded in meeting the letter of the law, and collecting bonus money from its customers, without investing in any new renewable energy projects."
• Read the full post here.

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