Pubdate: Sun, 29 May 2005
Source: Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT)
Copyright: 2005 MediaNews Group, Inc
Contact:  http://www.connpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/574
Author: Matthew Higbee
Cited: Students for a Sensible Drug Policy www.DAREgeneration.com
Cited: Criminal Justice Policy Foundation http://www.cjpf.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Urine Testing)

STUDENTS LOSING FREEDOMS

A junior high school in northern California pins radio identification tags 
on its students. New Jersey high school students must hand over a urine 
sample before trying out for band or earning parking privileges.

While not as intrusive as other states, schools in Connecticut are part of 
the trend to use ever more aggressive techniques to keep track of where 
students are, what they bring to school and what they put in their bodies.

West Haven High School is contemplating its own ID tag system. Police in 
Shelton and Oxford use a drug-sniffing dog to ferret out drugs and 
paraphernalia among students' possessions. And a bill is pending in the 
state Legislature that could lead to mandatory steroid testing for high 
school athletes.

It's all done in the name of safety. But privacy rights advocates say 
schools are attacking constitutional freedoms without a proper airing in 
the public square.

"We see a very real problem in our students and young people," said Roger 
Vann, director of the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union. "It's a 
demographic that's more and more under attack. They're a vulnerable 
population."

Since the war on drugs was declared in the 1980s, many schools have become 
part of the battlefield.

With the goal of making their classrooms and hallways safer, school 
administrators across the country declared zero-tolerance policies that 
have resulted in automatic suspensions and expulsions for students caught 
with illegal drugs. Principals have authorized random searches of lockers 
and cars parked on the school grounds. And students who want to play sports 
or participate in extracurricular activities must submit to drug tests.

According to a 2003 study by the University of Michigan's Journal of the 
School of Health, 19 percent of the schools engage in some form of drug 
testing.

Wrong Message?

While the courts have backed up schools on locker searches and drug 
testing, privacy advocates worry that an overzealous pursuit of a handful 
of offenders is sending a message that runs counter to lessons taught in 
civics classes. Their greater fear is that schools are teaching a 
generation of Americans to accept greater limitations on their privacy and 
freedom. "When dogs walk through the school, it creates a presumption that 
everyone is guilty, everyone is a suspect," said Eric Sterling, president 
of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, which advocates for drug-policy 
reform. "Is the lesson that they get [that] privacy doesn't mean anything? 
This carries over to medical records and financial rights of privacy. It is 
a deconditioning of students," he said.

A University of Connecticut survey earlier this year confirmed the fears of 
Vann, Sterling and others. A significant number of high school students 
demonstrated a limited understanding of the Bill of Rights. Many said that 
our country's founding principles went too far. Providing a safe 
environment, however, is the top priority for many school officials. "I 
take great umbrage at people that don't want their kid's locker searched," 
Shelton High School Headmaster Don Ramia said. "If your kid's clean, you 
should welcome that." A 14-year administrator and part-time supernumerary 
officer with the Shelton Police Department, Ramia said his school's 
discipline policy has evolved for the better. What used to require a 
cumbersome evaluation process before he could suspend a student is now 
streamlined. Students face immediate consequences when found with drugs, 
including suspension, arrest and mandatory appointments with drug-treatment 
counselors.

Ramia and administrators throughout the region insist their focus is on 
individual students who need an intervention. But in strengthening their 
relationships with the police, Shelton and other schools have also crossed 
into the territory of broad searches that treat all students as suspects.

Several weeks ago, Oxford administrators invited State Police to bring in a 
dog for a sweep of Great Oak Middle School after students were found with 
drug paraphernalia. No drugs were found.

Shelton High School administrators met with a similar result several years 
ago when police dogs sniffed the lockers there. So, Ramia said, the 
school's administration changed its approach to allow the dogs to roam the 
parking lot. And earlier this year, a police dog sniffed bags of students 
embarking on a ski trip.

"It's my job as an administrator to suspend kids using drugs. It gets them 
out of the population," Ramia said. From his Washington, D.C., office, 
Students for a Sensible Drug Policy Director Tom Angel advocates less 
punitive discipline policies. Pointing to statistics showing a rise in drug 
use among teenagers over the last two decades, he calls the war on drugs a 
failure.

"Zero-tolerance approaches seem to turn our schools into pipelines into 
prison," Angel said. "It puts students at risk because they don't approach 
school officials when they need help. It fosters a gotcha' attitude."

But for many young drug users, getting caught forces them to face up to 
their harmful habits, according Julie Penry, director of the Shelton Youth 
Services Bureau.

"It breaks down the wall of denial," Penry said. "Once that breaks down, 
they can get help from the crisis team within the school."

Privacy or Safety?

Shelton Youth Services Bureau's primary role is to provide a confidential 
resource for students needing help. It ran into a flap after it bought 
breathalyzers for testing teenagers who showed up drunk at student dances. 
When the school board learned of the testing devices only after reading 
about them in the local newspaper, they put their rollout on hold until an 
attorney reviews the legal issues. Such an example leads some to question 
just who is driving school policies and whether the community is 
appropriately involved.

"At a minimum, a community needs to put to the school the question of what 
are the values we want to teach," said Sterling, of the Criminal Justice 
Policy Foundation. "Some might say we want safety at all costs. Or a 
community can say privacy is preferential and want to instill to the school 
administrators that you don't give up privacy rights without showing that 
it is something that needs to be given up."

Such a discussion has acquired urgency, Sterling said, with the rise of 
random drug tests in states like New Jersey, where many public school 
students are required to submit a urinalysis before participating in an 
extracurricular activity or, in one school, attain parking privileges. The 
U.S. Education Department is backing such efforts. Beginning this year, the 
Safe and Drug-Free Schools program will give priority to grant proposals 
for school-based random or voluntary drug-testing programs. While testing 
students for street drugs has not hit Connecticut, random testing for 
steroids has made its way into a bill pending before the state Legislature. 
It was introduced by state House Republican leader Robert Ward, R-North 
Branford, following a scandal involving steroid use among football players 
at Madison's Daniel Hand High School.

Many officials see expanded testing in the state as only a matter of time. 
Andrea Leonardi, the state Department of Education contact for the 
drug-free schools program, notes the rise of testing in other areas of 
society such as the workplace and professional sports. "I think there are a 
number of things that will trickle down," she said. Leonardi cautioned that 
before implementing random testing, schools should make sure that 
punishment is not the consequence.

"We know that punishment is the least effective methodology for getting 
kids off drugs," Leonardi said. "What are we going to use that information 
to do? Treat or punish?"

Whether or not drug testing works is a matter of debate. In a 2003 
University of Michigan study, researchers found no evidence that random 
testing deterred drug use. But other experts have questioned the 
methodology of that study.

The Last Resort

Area school officials, meanwhile, appear hesitant to implement 
suspicionless testing. Milford school board member Mark Stapleton said its 
schools rely on peer counseling as a first line for dealing with behavioral 
problems. "Testing would be the very last resort. We don't think it's 
necessary or appropriate," Stapleton said. "Hopefully, students are 
sufficiently connected with their parents and teachers and friends."

Walking home from school with his friends on a recent afternoon, Stanley 
Almadovar, a 15-year-old Alternative High School student in Shelton, said 
that invasive methods for finding drugs were unnecessary. If teachers and 
administrators were really serious about helping drug users, he said, all 
they have to do is listen.

"I don't think surveillance is necessary," Almadovar said. "They should 
have teachers pay attention. In most classrooms, kids are saying what they do." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake