Pubdate: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 Source: Hingham Journal (MA) Copyright: 2008 Hingham Journal Contact: http://www2.townonline.com/hingham/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3806 Author: Nick Bush Note: Nick Bush is a News Editor for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian and a former Editor-in-Chief of the Hingham High School Harborlight. Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?237 (Drug Dogs) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States) SEPARATING EDUCATION FROM INVESTIGATION AT HHS Hingham - Hingham High School and the Hingham Police Department are two institutions with very different stated purposes. The goal of the High School is to educate and enlighten the young minds of our town. The goal of the Police Department is to find and arrest criminals. These two goals could not be more disparate. So then why, however, are the Hingham High School administration and the Police Department becoming so cozy with one another in recent years? If a student at HHS is arrested, or even picked up for any reason by the Hingham Police, the school is normally notified. In this manner, many students each year receive serious punishments from the school administration, without doing a single thing at the school itself. The Police Department is only allowed to give information about students to the school if the safety or educational environment of HHS could be harmed, according the Code of Conduct. It appears however that this phraseology is often abused by both the school and police, with the two trading information often. It is ludicrous that good, hardworking students are punished academically for making mistakes far outside the confines of the classroom. Students who have done nothing at school can find themselves suspended from school extra-curricular activities and sports teams for two weeks or more, and are forced to suffer a public ridicule for what was otherwise a private legal issue. The pressure of getting into a good college is stressful enough for young students, and such suspensions only put an unnecessary black mark on the futures of these individuals. The school doesn't just receive information from the HPD, however; the exchange is quite even, and the administration invites police over to the school whenever possible. HHS never fails to treat school dances like expected street riots (if they allow them to be held at all), insuring that students' wonderful memories of school dances are always shared in their minds with the image of a line of police hovering near the wall. The Hingham High School administration has asserted its right to breathalyze every student wishing to come into a school dance, and has responded to criticisms by saying that students are taking place in an optional, extra-curricular event. The same exact justification could be made for mandatory drug testing for any student on a sporting team (a radical measure that has never been considered by the town). Yet the HHS administration has felt comfortable going ahead with breathalyzation at dances, which is just as invasive and over the line as drug testing. Police officers have been invited to the school on a number of occasions to do run surprise searches on the student body, sometimes using drug-tracking dogs. Many times the actions of the HHS administration have bordered violation of the 4th amendment, which guarantees protection from unwarranted search and seizure for every man, woman and child born in the United States. The citizens of Hingham need, for the sake of their own children, to demand that the Hingham High School administration stop presuming every student is a probable criminal. No student wakes up in the morning and makes the long, tired walk to school with the goal of breaking the law; they come to school to learn, and broaden their horizons. The school's current policies have gone over the line, and are actively interfering with the education and futures of its students. It may be politically safe for the administration, but is far from what is in the best interest Hingham's children. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom