Citizen - Wednesday, Sept. 2, IM7 - Page : Parents air concerns over Citizenship policy By SHARON MORREY Concerned parents were assured Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Aug. 25 and 27, that the Citizenship policy going into effect this year at the American Fork High School will be reasonably enforced and students will be treated with "latitude and compassion," by the principal and the policy committee. "It's going to be okay," promised Dr. Steven Baugh, as he listened to parents worry over some of the implications of the new and seemingly hard-line policy. Parents at the public meetings wanted to know what will happen to their students with chronic health problems and subsequent frequent absences. Others wanted to maintain main-tain their freedom of choice in raising their students. "I think there needs to be a tightening up, certainly," said one mother. "Something must be done about the truancy, the tardiness. But to me, it (the policy) almost borders on socialism, to be told what we can and cannot do with our children. "We feel like if they're getting good grades, our kids are 4.0, and we want to go skiing one school day as a family, we should have that freedom," she said. Dr. Baugh explained that family travel plans, including ski-trips as well as trips to Europe, etc., would be considered legitimate excused absences "as long as we have that parental involvement. "In this kind of a situation, the student would be expected to make a choice, either accept a drop in the Citizenship grade from an A to a B, perhaps, or do the two makeup sessions," he said. "I guess what we're trying to teach here is some accountability, some responsibility as it is in real life," Melvin Kitchen added, a teacher on the committee to set up and work with the policy terms. "That may seem unduly harsh," went on Baugh, "But that's the direction we're going, as a district and as a state." Committee member teachers noted that under the 8-period block program, students meet in a given class 20 times in a semester. "If the student misses two of those r ?! y.iggf V ytpq flfuWt-J I Jk I 1 .:jVW I promise you it's going to be principal, fields questions citizenship policy at the school times, he's missed 10 percent," said teacher Scott Hendrickson. "In American Fork High School on any given day there are 80 to 150 students out of 1200 enrolled that miss at least one class," explained Dr. Baugh. "That's kids who are just skipping all the way to those who are seriously ill. The numbers have become so large that it's very, very difficult to follow up on the absences. "Young people today are in general less willing to submit to authority, a bit more independent. There's an erosion of desire to be in school on time. Most teachers would like to have some way to control these kids." Baugh said an opinion handed down by the State Attorney General stating that academic grades could not be cut for misbehavior seriously okay. Dr. Steven Baugh, AFHS and concerns over the new affected the teacher's ability to control classroom climate. He cited the Citizenship policy as an effort in the direction of educating the parents as well as the students. "Parents agree under the law to keep their children in school between bet-ween the ages of 5 and 17. When they do not, they are actually in violation of the law," he pointed out. "We don't have the answers to all of these (questions)," said Dr. Baugh. "I may point out here that there is an appeals committee. We don't want something that's so tight that we create problems. We don't want to put the responsible student in a little box. We do want responsible respon-sible citizenship. We've had a mandate from our patrons to do what we can to achieve that." New hospital procedure helps prevent c-sections A new procedure was performed at American Fork Hospital for the first time last week, which, in some cases, can prevent a c-section delivery. Dr. James Lamoreaux performed the procedure, called Amnioinfusion. Sometimes when a mother is in labor, her baby's umbilical cord can be in such a position that it becomes trapped between the uterus and the baby itself during each contraction. This can cause deceleration of the infant's heart (a drop in the heartbeat). This puts the baby in stress, which means that he is not getting enough blood. If this condition perists, the result has usually been a c-section delivery. With Amnioinfusion, a saline solution is injected into the uterus through the pressure catheter, an internal monitor which measures the mother's contractions during labor. This solution, which closely matches fluid naturally inside the uterus, acts as a cushion and prevents the umbilical cord from becoming trapped between the uterus and the baby during con- Manning resigns as planning head Mary Manning has resigned from American Fork's Planning and Zoning Commission. Mayor R. Kent Evans announced her resignation at last week's City Council meeting, noting that Mary not only served as Chairman of the Planning Commission, but also of the Site Plan Review Board. Evans expressed gratitude on behalf of the city for the much time and effort Mary has contributed to the community. A recommendation will be given to the next City Council meeting. Tuesday, Sept. 8, to fill the vacant seat. tractions. Amnioinfusion was developed in 1983 by a physician in Los Angeles. The procedure is relatively new to this area and this was the first time it was performed at American Fork Hospital. "This seems like such a simple procedure," says Dr. Lamoreaux, "but it is really revolutionary. This is the first time anything has been injected in a mother's uterus during labor. Amnioinfusion stops the heart decelerations. This takes stress off the baby and allows the mother to have a normal delivery." When Dr. Lamoreaux performed the procedure last week, the baby he was delivering was experiencing heart decelerations to the point where he would have had to perform per-form a c-section birth. Amnioinfusion. however, allowed the mother and infant to have a normal delivery. Dr. Lamoreaux leels confident that this procedure will help other mothers here in the future and the babies thev deliver. lime is running out to get into the phone book. It's just about that time again. We're getting our brand new White Pages Directory ready to go to press. So if you have any changes or additions to make in your home or business listing, call your service representative now. 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