APPLETON - Xavier High School will start mandatory drug testing for all of its students in the fall.
The practice is not the result of high drug usage among Xavier students but rather a focus on student health, said Principal Mike Mauthe.
"The impetus for the program is not because Xavier has some sort of huge problem," he said. "I think our numbers on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey over the years have indicated, compared to some of our neighboring schools, our rates of drug use are significantly lower, but anybody who opens up The Post-Crescent and reads about heroin deaths and the increased use of all kinds of drugs here in the Valley knows that any sort of drug usage rate is a problem.
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Xavier isn't the first school in the Fox Cities to do random drug testing of students, but it would be the first private high school here and the first in the Diocese of Green Bay.
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Because it's a private school, Xavier can mandate drug tests for everyone because students pay to attend the school.
Public school students, meanwhile, can only be screened if they participate in activities outside of the regular curriculum. The U.S. Supreme Court found public school drug testing of student-athletes and students who participate in extracurricular activities constitutional in 1995 and 2002, respectively.
For the record, I think this is a
terrible misguided idea. The salutatorian of my high school was a major stoner and said person went on to graduate from a major university(with honors) and is now a successful businessperson. It's not clear what punishment is issued for violations, but this kind of invasion could lead offenders down a path of destruction whereas sometimes these kids learn from any potential mistakes without the need for some institutional intervention. Behavior is the problem that should be targeted, like missing school, bad grades, disruptions, violence, etc.
Do Milwaukee Catholic schools do something like this?
Where's
the "Weed 'nuns'" when you need them... (kidding!)
Update: If you are in favor of mandatory drug testing for student, are you also in favor of mandatory STD testing of all students? Or do we only deal in socially unacceptable problems?
