Last weekend, principal Alan Goodwin attended the 10th annual Board of Hispanic Caucus Chairs Conference in Austin, Texas to speak about the dangers of underage drinking.

Goodwin believes he was invited was because of the attention garnered by the email he sent last month to the Whitman listserv urging parents not to serve their children alcohol and host drinking parties.

“They wanted me to talk about the email first and the reaction I got from it, which was 100 percent positive,” Goodwin said. “They also wanted me to share some anecdotes of what has happened in MCPS as a result of parents serving alcohol.”

The Caucus meets twice a year in front of state delegates or legislators to present different issues in hopes that the delegates will implement suggested changes in their respective government bodies. This Caucus focused specifically on youth.

Although the Caucus is intended to focus on issues that affect Hispanic students, many of the topics also extend to impact others.

Goodwin spoke on a panel that talked about how to limit tobacco and alcohol access to minors and asked that the legislators “put more bite” into what happens to an adult that serves alcohol at an underage party.

“Hopefully something beyond the fine,” Goodwin said. “Money is nothing to some people, but perhaps if they had to spend 100 hours at an AA organization trying to help people that were addicted to alcohol, that would strike more meaning.”

In addition to speaking on his panel, Goodwin also learned from the other panels at the Caucus.

At the Workforce Development Panel, the two main speakers were representatives from American Petroleum Products and Toyota.

“They spoke about ways to get students employed at their companies because they’re in need of workers due to the influx of people retiring,” Goodwin said.

A third panel had to do with supporting at-risk community schools that need support to get students engaged in school and financial resources.

“In MCPS, there are a couple of schools in our county that have wellness centers, which are not quite the same thing but similar to the community schools,” Goodwin said. “They have counselor and nurse that will come in to meet with kids who might not be able to afford them normally.”

The panel pleaded for legislators to allocate more money to these schools.

Goodwin hopes that the legislators take his suggestions to increase the punishment for parents serving minors alcohol and bring it to the legislatures in their respective states.

“It’s surreal,” Goodwin said. “One little email that I wrote at 10:30 at night because I was mad at parents for hosting drinking parties became something I was sitting in Texas talking about.”

Read more about Goodwin’s email here.