school seems kind of odd these days...

[hnpcc]

Some of this makes me blink in astonishment.

NJ school to start using sniffer dogs to search for drugs.

I can honestly say I don't remember any drug searches at my school. No dogs, no locker searches.. no drugs come to that[1]. I'm not sure if we were just isolated or it was a different time or what, but I find the whole idea of having sniffer dogs at a school totally bizarre.

I do remember there being under-age drinking, just not at the school. Friday and Saturday nights in the park, sure, but not at school. What, how stupid do you think people were?

Then you have the girl suspended and threatened with expulsion for taking her birth control pill.

OK, I have to admit my initial question was why the hell she was taking it at school. Even so, the response seems a little... extreme, perhaps? It does also beg the question of how they cope with diabetics (OMG! Needles! Injections!) or asthmatics (ZOMG! Puffing drugs!!) or peanut allergies come to that (ZOMGOMG!!! Epipen!!)

And then you have the 13 year old girl who was strip searched when staff suspected she'd brought Ibuprofen to school.

?!?

I mean, firstly: strip searched?!?!? Forget the sniffer dogs, this is taking the 'war on drugs' to new levels of stupidity.

And secondly - Ibuprofen? Like the over the counter drug used commonly for period pain?

Um, OK.

As I said, I think I grew up in more innocent times. Or something, because all of this just reads bizarrely to me. I'm starting to see why some people in the US are pulling their kids out and homeschooling, and not just for nutty religious reasons. Bizarre.

[1] OK, I remember one "drugs" incident. A guy in my year level was asked by a couple of guys in the year level below to get them some weed. Not having a clue where to get it, but feeling like hey, easy money, he made "marijuana" cigarettes by taking out the tobacco, mixing it with grass clippings and selling it to them at $2/cigarette. (They reported getting high off it, which does make me wonder how much of it is psychological. Combined with inexperience, obviously.) I do wonder now what would have happened if someone had seen Wanga selling the 'drugs' though - God knows sniffer dogs wouldn't have picked it up. Heh.

Comments

[kirstenfleur.livejournal.com]

I remember one locker search at Wgl High for marijuana (in year 8) but that was it.

I have huge objections to a 13yo getting strip searched. What on earth is wrong with ibuprofen? How odd. And the bc pills- I was taking those in Yr 12 to control period pain! Not at school, though, I must admit.

The schools must have policies to deal with chronic illnesses that require drugs, mustn't they? This is silly.

[vestalvagrant.livejournal.com]

I had a friend in Year 12 who was on the Pill for contraceptive purposes. She kept it in her school bag and took it at school so her mum wouldn't find out.

Surely it's unethical and illegal to stripsearch someone under the age of 18? I haven't read the article yet - did the administrative staff take it upon themselves? Did they get security guards to do it? This is one occasion to be thankful for the US's litigious culture. I hope her parents sue whoever's responsible for whatever they can get. Whatever's left from her counselling bill can go in a trust fund for her.

[vestalvagrant.livejournal.com]

Read it now.

I can't believe anyone is trying to defend the school's actions. I'm sure if it had happened in Australia they'd be damned by the Dept of Education, the Premier, and the highest member of school staff who wasn't involved in ordering the search. I'm horrified.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

We had three boys expelled for smoking dope in the drama props cupboard.

Two years running.

[hnpcc]

They were expelled for smoking dope in the cupboard 2 years running or there were 6 boys expelled?

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

6 boys expelled, two lots of three, expelled for doing the same stupid thing in the same not-terribly-well-hidden place.

I don't quite understand what the appeal of the drama cupboard was, to be honest...

[hnpcc]

It was apparently hidden and dark?

I'm amazed that two lots of them managed to do it. That kind of reeks (pun!) of stupidity.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

They weren't the brightest of sparks, really.

I mean, if even I (who was well away from the centre of the gossip networks) knew about where the first lot were caught, I can't imagine that the others could have been unaware of it.

[valamelmeo.livejournal.com]

Even when I was in grade school in the '90s, the school's zero-tolerance drugs policy was that ANY medications, no matter what they were, had to be kept in the nurse's office in their original packaging, and administered by the school nurse as needed. Violations were punishable by suspension, and in theory at least this included things as innocuous as aspirin and ibuprofen tablets.

If you wanted to legally take any medications at school, you had to have a doctor's note and bring your own bottle (for prescriptions, only the original prescription bottle with the prescription label attached), leave it in the nurse's medicine safe (which only held student-owned medications; the school didn't provide even aspirin), and get permission from your teachers to go to the nurse's office to take it at the intervals specified in the doctor's note.

My memory of this is quite vivid, because in fifth grade (aged 10, in 1991) I got in trouble for taking Zinc tablets to suck on for a sore throat. I wasn't strip-searched or anything (fortunately Zinc tablets have a distinctive odor), but I was given a stern warning that the next time I was found with unauthorized medications I'd be suspended from school.