File photo of a classroom. (credit: KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images)
Officials decided to start drug testing during the next school year after a recent survey conducted to their students.
“What was most alarming for us is that when you asked our students if everyone else is doing it, they said, ‘Yes.’ But, in fact, they weren’t,” Harkness told KSHB-TV. “It’s that perception I think among teenagers today that fuels the peer pressure – that there’s this idea that ‘Everyone is doing it, so I guess I have to do it myself.’”
Parents are also backing the school’s decision.
“We’ve had lots of conversations – that’s the thing I like most about it – it has opened up conversations around the dinner table with both my boys, and that’s been great for our family,” mother Tammy Privitera told KSHB-TV.
The ACLU, though, believe school drug testing is a waste of time and money.
“Nothing prohibits it,” Doug Bonney, legal director for the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri, told the Star. “But it is a colossal waste of money.”
Private schools are allowed to test all students while public schools are restricted by the Fourth Amendment.
