Hardin County Schools are now requiring students who drive and park on school campuses to be subjected to random drug testing. Again, I would like to stress the word STUDENTS. Teachers on the other hand are not required to drug test unless of instances of suspicion. Why is this? What is the reasoning behind it? Well, the school board has not given a reasons as to why they are doing this, only that they are. Students are being treated as if they are criminals for simply driving their cars to school. Now some might say, well drug testing the students will want to keep them away from drugs. But by that logic, why not drug test the entire student body? Why are we singling out just the students who are driving? But with all of these questions there are some things we do know. First, we know that if you do not consent to the random drug testing that last year round, you are denied access to parking for the entire school year. Students who live out of district who want their privacy respected, are between a rock and a hard place. Clearly if they live out of district, they chose to go to their certain school because it is the school in which they feel they belong. But the rule is, if you live out of district you have to provide your own transportation. So for those particular students, if they want their privacy respected, they either keep going to said school, are chose to set aside their morals, thus losing respect for themselves.
Okay, so I know what you must be thinking, why is this random girl on the internet rambling about privacy when it comes to a drug test ?
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), being subjected to random drug screening for no wrong doing of your own is against your civil liberties. An ACLU representative states that, "In fact, workplace drug testing is up 277 percent from 1987 - despite the fact that random drug testing is unfair, often inaccurate and unproven as a means of stopping drug use. But because there are few laws protecting our privacy in the workplace, millions of American workers are tested yearly - even though they aren't suspected of drug use. Employers have the right to expect workers not to be high or drunk on the job. But they shouldn't have the right to require employees to prove their innocence by taking a drug test." This directly and if not more so, applies to students in high school. Yes, the school has the right to expect us to come to school sober, as we should be doing, but why do we have to prove our innocence when we have given them no reason to suspect us of abusing drugs.
The question as to why its only students who can drive is still up in the air. But whether or not it is every single student in the school or just one, the point is, this is against our civil liberties, the students are under suspicion in a place we are suppose to feel the safest, and all of this is coming from the people who say they want to protect us. The Hardin County School Board. Who's motto is "Helping Children Succeed".
If this is their idea of helping us succeed, I think it is time for a new motto.
