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The Aberdeen School Board is considering requiring all Aberdeen Central High School students to sign up for a voluntary drug testing program.
The school district's lawyer is recommending that all students could be required to sign up because in the end, the proposed program is still voluntary [AP, "Changes Pending in Proposed Aberdeen Drug Testing," KELOLand.com, 2007.11.13].
We do love mandatory voluntary drug testing. But hey, didn't we already cover this issue?
Folks in Aberdeen might be thinking they had already covered it, too. But district lawyer Rory King has helped the board pull the switcheroo: when the board presented the plan at a public forum last month, it applied solely to kids in extracurricular activities. Now King has changed his recommendation, and the new policy has gotten first reading without any discussion before a public forum [see Russ Keen, "Drug Testing Plan Altered," Aberdeen American News, 2007.11.13].
(Oh, but shame on me, criticizing an elected school board. How can I be so negative?)
Both Keen and the AP article does explain that the Aberdeen Central students would all be required to put their names on the list for the pee-in-the-cup lottery. The voluntary part comes in that if a student's name is drawn the parents (or the student herself, if she's 18 or over) can refuse the test.
Now we all know how that works. Imagine the school draws your name. Your parents (or you, dear non-minors) say, "No way! Keep your hands off my kid's pee." Thanks to the school's Big-Brotherism, the rumor mill starts spinning: "Ooo, did you hear so-and-so refused the drug test? I wonder what she's hiding...." It's not right, but that's how the local rumor mill works.
The Aberdeen school district should stay out of this mess. If parents want their kids tested for drugs, they can haul 'em down to the clinic right now. School-mandated drug-testing (or mandatory sign-up for voluntary drug-testing, or whatever Orwellian foolishness the Aberdeen school district is trying to foist upon its citizens) will probably do more harm to innocent kids by invading privacy and generating rumors.
I'm with you. This goes too far and it's a rediculous policy in the first place. You either make it mandatory or voluntary and if it's voluntary, no one is going to go for it.
ReplyDeleteIf it's going to be for all the students anyway, why do they need to sign up? The school district already has a list of kids, all they should have to do is draw the names.
A more practical policy would say that athletes and those participating in extra curricular activities will be subject to testing if use is susptected or reported. And parents will be notified if that testing is to take place.