Teachers, Administrators and School Counselors:

Whatever your role as educator — teacher, principal, health educator, school nurse, coach or guidance counselor — you can play an important role in preventing underage drinking.

At school, kids draw conclusions about alcohol use from what they see and hear from their friends and classmates. Those who believe that alcohol use is the norm accepted by their peers are at greatest risk for experimenting with alcohol and becoming regular drinkers at an early age.

Prevention is most effective when it changes students' beliefs about the prevalence and acceptability of alcohol use among their peers. When schools establish alcohol policies that clearly state expectations and penalties regarding alcohol use by students, they help reinforce the fact that underage drinking is not an acceptable form of behavior.