As many residents of Hillsborough are still unaware, the Board of Education has recently opened debate on a plan to randomly drug test high school students participating in sports and extra-curricular activities and those applying for parking passes.
This policy is yet another illustration of the continuing breakdown of trust between the school administration and the students.
Already, students are required to present a photo ID to a hall monitor to be able to use the bathroom. When students feel they are in a police state instead of a school, it can no longer be an effective and comfortable learning environment.
And when students are being treated like suspected criminals, they are encouraged to act like criminals.
Rather than deterring students from using drugs, this plan is likely to have the reverse effect of by deterring students from participating in extracurricular activities. For many students, staying squeaky clean for fear of an often unreliable drug test is a higher price to pay than the jazz band or the robotics team is worth.
Though many argue that similar policies recently adopted in at Hunterdon Central seem to have been effective, who can say whether the lower number of positive tests is due to decreased drug use, or decreased participation in extra-curricular activities?
I was not unable to find a single study that proved that drug testing was an effective deterrent to drug use. As such, random drug testing is a needless and harmful violation of the students’ privacy.
Without even clear evidence that these policies are truly effective, schools have initiated a slippery slope. In the U.S. Supreme Court case Vernonia v. Acton, the court upheld random drug testing of athletes, but specified that this their decision should not be used to justify expansion of drug testing in schools.
Even so, lower courts have already upheld expansion of this policy to include extra curricular activities. What may seem now like a small encroachment on students’ right to privacy could easily grow far more extreme, one baby step at a time.
It is for these reasons that I urge citizens of Hillsborough to attend the board meetings where this policy is to be discussed and speak out against this baseless and dangerous violation of trust and students’ rights.
Amelia Lavranchuk, of Hillsborough
