As Stephen Escarcega listens to speaker David Buscemi, his wife Kris, center, and friend Vanessa look at a picture of Buscemi taken after the accident in which a drunken driver hit him eight years ago. They were attending a Community of Concern meeting at Salpointe Catholic High School last Thursday evening.

Jeffry Scott / Arizona Daily Star

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Salpointe senior Sasha Escarcega shooed her parents out of the house Thursday evening, but for a good reason.

For the past three years, Salpointe Catholic High School has required all parents to attend a two-hour forum on substance-abuse prevention. Their kids can't go to the prom or winter formal until after their parents take the course.

Thursday's class was the last one for parents this school year. The Salpointe prom is two weeks from tonight. Sasha gets to go.

Kris and Stephen Escarcega came out of the class with the feeling their daughter's school is on the right track.

"This is the stuff we teach our kids," Kris Escarcega said.

Her husband nodded in agreement. "We need to be tough on our kids when it comes to alcohol and drugs," he said.

While schools across the community teach students about drug and alcohol abuse and offer information to parents, Salpointe appears to be the only local school so far that requires parents to attend a class.

Catalina Foothills High School — where three girls were arrested last September for possession of heroin — is planning mandatory half-hour meetings with parents of incoming freshmen starting this fall.

Part of the half hour will be devoted to substance abuse.

But Salpointe requires parents to stay for the full two hours. And it's working now to get other schools to adopt its program.

Mike Urbanski, associate head of Salpointe, explained how his school developed its parent-education policy.

"It was just finally the realization that we couldn't do it all on our own — that the No. 1 people who needed to be educated were the parents," Urbanski said.

That realization came after a series of incidents involving Salpointe students, alcohol and drugs — some of them ending in tragedy.

On Feb. 28, 2003, Patrick Rebarchak, 17 and legally drunk, died after slamming his 1967 Mustang into a utility pole. Rebarchak was a star student, a top swimmer, a student council member and a trumpet player with Salpointe's jazz band.

"It was shortly after that happened that parents and school officials got together to talk about what we could do," Urbanski said.

Salpointe's two-hour course is based on the "Community of Concern" program developed over the past eight years by parents and officials at a Catholic high school outside Washington, D.C. Their 32-page booklet offers advice and information on topics including improving communication between parents and students; recognizing signs of substance abuse; and a state-by-state chart on the potential consequences of experimenting with drugs and alcohol.

More than 1 million copies of the booklet, which sells for $1.85, are being used at schools in 29 states, said Mimi Fleury, who headed the committee that drafted the first manual in 1998.

Salpointe officials aren't saying the Community of Concern program has eliminated all drugs and alcohol from their campus. The school called police in December when some students showed up for the winter formal with alcohol on their breath.

"We know kids are selling OxyContin for $30 a pill on this campus right now," Urbanski told the more than 30 parents who attended Thursday's forum. OxyContin, a narcotic painkiller, is one of many prescription drugs teens sneak out of their family's medicine cabinets to use themselves and sell to classmates, Urbanski said.

But officials think the program is making a difference. Rebarchak's death marks the last time a Salpointe student was killed or injured in an alcohol- or drug-related incident, Urbanski said Friday.

The program also gets credit for the fact that more parents are contacting the school when they have concerns about their students, or hear about parties or other activities where they think adults will not be present but alcohol or drugs will be.

"Three years ago we had only five calls of this nature," Urbanski said. "Two years ago we had eight calls. Last year we had 10. So far this year we've had 12. Now I realize some people would say that shows there's more of a problem. But we hope it means we're getting the message out that we want to work with parents."

Besides Urbanski, speakers at Thursday's forum included Assistant Tucson Police Chief John Leavitt; attorney Elliot Glicksman; psychiatrist Kevin Leehey; and David Buscemi, 26, who was nearly killed when a drunk driver hit his motorcycle eight years ago.

Buscemi was attending Pima Community College, where he had a 3.9 grade-point average out of a possible 4.0. He was working part-time to pay his tuition, loved to go to dances "and always had a girl on my arm," he said Thursday. Today he is permanently disabled and unable to work. He has difficulty walking without a cane and has to paper the walls of his home with reminders about the things he has trouble remembering to do.

"Think about me," Buscemi told the parents. "How would you feel if I were your kid? My life will never, ever be the same because of one guy who decided to drink and drive."

Substance abuse is a widespread problem on high-school campuses, but remains covert, said Catalina Foothills High School principal Walter Van Vlack. "No one really has a sense of the magnitude. We just know it's a problem," he said.

Mark Clark, CEO of CODAC Behavioral Health Services in Tucson, said he has heard about Salpointe's program from school officials and parents.

"Anything that increases parents' awareness of alcohol and other drug-abuse issues among teens is a great thing," Clark said. "And anything that equips parents with the skills to do a better job of setting limits and monitoring their kids' behavior is a great thing."

Sasha Escarcega said her parents did a good job of teaching her that drugs and alcohol "are not only bad habits, they're expensive habits. And they can ruin your life."

But peer pressure works both ways, Sasha said, pushing some kids toward risky behaviors while convincing others to play it safe. "It all comes down to choices," she said.

And Salpointe made a good choice, when it started the parents' class three years ago, said Suzi Malisewski, whose daughter is a sophomore at the school.

"I'm just happy that my child attends a school that's willing to do this," Malisewski said.