Sunday, March 25, 2007

School drug testing

"For middle and high school students in about 1,000 districts across the country, including about two dozen in New Jersey, random drug tests have become routine, like pop quizzes for a student’s body. The increase in screening began after the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that schools could test students participating in extracurricular activities. Students are screened for marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines and an assortment of other narcotics, and a growing number of districts are now looking to use urine tests to determine whether students have drunk alcohol, including outside school. If they have, parents are notified and students are barred from school activities until they receive counseling. Test results are confidential and are not included on disciplinary records." (NY Times, by Dave Kocieniewski)

Does Cheshire do this? I haven't heard of any such testing. As well, I'm curious to know how you could test for illicit alcohol consumption. I think schools would be hardpressed to disprove a student had taken a cold medication with alcohol.

Tim White
Town Council, 4th District

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

When will the comment be here "unfunded mandate' or central control of our school system

Anonymous said...

When I was in CHS (class '70), Sgt. O'Leary and colleagues gave an anti-marijuana presentation. They showed us the film "Reefer Madness" (Message: we would go insane if we smoked pot).

My most cherished memory of the presentation is when the police passed around five rolled joints so we would know what to avoid. At the conclusion, the officers collected back SIX joints from the students.....

Anonymous said...

Rasta

Anonymous said...

Cheeba

Anonymous said...

Smokin

Anonymous said...

There should be mandatory unannounced drug testing in the high school.