Michael Arbogast, the principal of South Charleston High School, has a hard time sleeping two nights of the school year - graduation and prom.
He's worried that in those nights of celebrations, he'll get a call saying that one of his students died.
"I've had to go to half a dozen funerals of our students," Arbogast said. "That's the most difficult thing to deal with because it's like losing your own children."
To help assuage the fears of Arbogast and other principals across Kanawha County, the Kanawha County Sheriff introduced Operation: Graduation Prom Alive in 2006.
This year, the sheriff will be continuing the increased police presence around the high schools during proms and graduations in Kanawha County.
The program, called Operation GPA for short, unites the sheriff's office, the State Police and city police officers to create an increased police presence around events to "help make students make good decisions."
The officers are present outside of every high school's prom and graduation. Kanawha Metro 911 works with the officers and passes along any calls reporting parties, so that officers can drive around the area to let students know there are officers around. If noise complaints have come in, officers will tell party goers to quiet down.
Schools have students sign forms that say they are subject to Breathalyzer tests if they appear to be intoxicated, but Arbogast said that he's never had to use one.
"We don't want to appear that Big Brother is watching," Arbogast said. "We want kids to enjoy themselves."
While the program works to combat underage drinking, there are DUI checkpoints set up near the events and in years past officers have run operations to see if liquor stores are selling to minors. This year, the sheriff's office did not receive a grant to see if stores are selling alcohols to minors.
South Charleston school resource officer Stan Miller and Kanawha Chief Deputy Mike Rutherford said that the program was about preventing kids from making bad decisions.
"If we can get them to think three seconds before they make that bad decision, they wouldn't make the bad decision," Miller said.
During the school year, South Charleston hosts an assembly to help raise awareness for driving safely. They'll bring in people who have been in bad car accidents and police officers who have been to accident scenes.
Miller said that when he talks to classes he tries to help them imagine being in a position where they got a knock on the door at 2 a.m. to find out a loved one had died.
The program has worked, Rutherford said. Since it has been implemented there have been no deaths or crashes associated with prom or graduation, he added.
"We want them to have a good time," Rutherford said. "But we want them to be here 20 years from now."
Reach Daniel Desrochers at dan.desrochers@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4886 or on twitter at @drdesrochers.