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West Virginia Public Broadcasting has an important piece concerning random drug testing of high school students in Cabell county who participate in extracurricular activities or drive to school. Officials quoted for the story noted that the rate of positive tests (about 6%) was less than they expected. Todd Alexander is the administrative assistant for secondary schools and helped come up with the idea of the drug testing. He says school officials are encouraged by the low numbers compared to anonymous survey results that made them think it would be higher. "It ended up being like a 5.9 percent positive rate which I think is pretty much the standard," Alexander said. I hate to break it to officials with the Cabell County school system, but the reason your positive rate is lower than your anonymous survey results is because students involved in extracurricular activities are less likely to be involved in drugs than other students. In fact, Mr. Alexander more or less admits that later in the interview: Alexander says there were 1,141 students in the pool that could have been tested, leaving 2,300 students between the two high schools that couldn’t be tested, because they didn’t meet the criteria. He says officials are concerned that they aren’t testing the right group. But because of a Supreme Court ruling in 2001, only students taking part in extracurricular activities, students who drive to school or who volunteer can be tested. This is important for a variety of reasons. Those who argue against policies such as the one instituted by Cabell County make several arguments in building their case. One of those arguments is that it's an unconscionable misuse of public resources to spend money where very little or no problem exists. Tax dollars for education are not an infinite resource. When spending money to address the very serious and palpable problem of drug use among kids, government officials must at all times put those resources where they will be most effective. Spending money where there isn't much of a problem and allowing the real problem to go unaddressed (which is what this policy is doing) is terrible. To be sure, ACLU of WV is by no means advocating drug testing the other portion of the student body not involved in extracurricular activities. What we are saying is the results provided in the first round of Cabell County's drug testing bonanza have confirmed what others around the country have known for quite some time. Basically, by spending money on this program, Cabell County cannot spend money addressing the issue of drug use by students not engaged in extracurricular activities, which, it can be reasonably inferred, is where the problem is more prevalent. Wouldn't it be a better use of resources to employee an extra counselor or two to work with at risk kids in the school system? What about the barriers the current program places between at risk kids and the extracurricular activities that could help straighten their lives out? It seems pretty obvious that athletics, volunteerism, competitive school clubs, and other extracurricular activities provide a successful alternative to getting mixed up with illegal drugs. Why not devote County resources to finding ways that encourage more students to get involved in the extracurricular activities that would help keep them out of trouble? I am willing to bet the prospect of being forced to surrender a sample of one's urine for inspection is keeping a lot of kids in Cabell County from even thinking about participating in the very extracurricular activities that would offer a successful alternative to experimental and otherwise harmful drug use. One thing is for sure, a lot of kids in Cabell county are still involved in drugs. Instead of investing resources to address this issue responsibly, the local Board of Education has decided to try and claim a victory by more or less saying, "Look, the people not near as likely to be involved in drugs aren't testing positive that often. What a success!" Not so fast! Everyone who cares about the privacy rights of students as well as policy that successfully tackle the issue of drug use among teenagers shoud take time to see these results for what they really are-proof that random drug testing of students involved in extracurricular activities is a failed policy that takes valuable public resources away from the real problem and therefore, makes it worse. |
