Pubdate: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 Source: Pensacola News Journal (FL) Copyright: 2011 The Pensacola News Journal Contact: http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=OPINION0301 Website: http://www.pnj.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1675 DRUG USE IN SCHOOLS Sometimes it seems as if when it comes to our schools, we forget that we're dealing with children. We forget that the ultimate point is to educate them as an integral part of equipping them to arrive at adulthood poised to succeed. So too often we focus on policies that punish them for making mistakes instead of creating conditions that help them succeed. That makes the report from PNJ education reporter Erin Kourkounis that drug expulsions in Escambia County schools are down by half this year such good news. She reported that school officials credit the district's new drug policy. Students were empowered to participate in the plan, which includes both enforcement -- primarily the use of drug dogs to search schools - -- and drug use prevention education by the students themselves. No, in a best of all possible school worlds we wouldn't need drug dogs in our schools. But the reality is that it helps get the message to students that drug use can have serious consequences. Preventing children from using illegal drugs is critical to ensuring that they focus on getting an education in school, not other -- more negative -- activities. It is also important to keep them from hurting other students' efforts to learn. But it is no solution to a real-world drug problem to simply kick students out so that we don't have to deal with them. "Out of sight, out of mind" is not a sound policy. Drug-using students are a problem, but our schools are not doing their job by pretending the problem does not exist. Students who bring drugs to school all but shout at the top of their lungs that they have a problem. A policy that uses their peers to educate them about drug use, while also visibly raising the chance that they will be caught for doing so, helps our schools, and helps students. That's a successful policy. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.