NJ School District To Random Drug Test All HS Students
A school district in New Jersey is looking to enforce a new policy starting as early as this coming fall, which will put into place random drug testing for every high school student. The district's two high schools share roughly 5,000 students between them, all of whom would face penalties and mandatory drug counseling if they test positive.Naturally and rightfully, parents in the district are outraged by the implementation of a policy that they had no input into, that infringes on the personal privacy of their children. From NBC NY:
They expressed anger at the proposal and said their opinions weren't included enough in the process.
"It seems very sudden that such a big policy like this would be coming to a school district such as Northern Valley without the knowledge of parents," said parent GC Vaghasia.
"The data is all over the place," said Jamie Kopf, another parent. "It's not something that's conclusively proven to help reduce use of drugs."
Also, the Supreme Court already ruled on this situation previously, concluding that random, suspicion-less drug testing was in violation of the Constitutional rights of the students, however would be permitted in cases of athletics or extracurricular activity. Simply attending school is not an extracurricular activity, so how can this possibly be moving forward?It looks like we'll have another ruling upcoming, as there will surely be lawsuits forthcoming from the parents. One more reason to support home-schooling!
