It's About Taking Responsibility For Our Children and Getting Rid of 'Guilt by Association'

From Westborough Public Schools Chemical Health Policy:

“During the school year, a student shall not, regardless of the quantity, use, consume, possess, buy/sell, give away or knowingly be in the presence of any beverage containing alcohol or any controlled substance.” 

From MIAA Handbook Section (July 1, 2011 – June 30, 2013) Section 62.1:

“. . . a student shall not, regardless of the quantity, use, consume, possess, buy/sell, or give away any beverage containing alcohol; any tobacco product; marijuana; steroids; or any controlled substance. . . This MIAA statewide minimum standard is not intended to render ‘guilt by association’, e.g. many student athletes might be present at a party where only a few violate this standard.”

If you are a conservative with a libertarian bent, you could easily argue that the Westborough Public Schools Chemical Health Policy is a case of government overreach. From the other end of the political spectrum, you could argue that this policy tramples on civil liberties. 

It takes the old English common law concept of “in loco parentis” to the extreme. People complain that schools are being forced to take on too many of the responsibilities of parents so why is the Westborough School Committee going out of its way to take on a law-enforcement role?

If a student chooses to use drugs or alcohol and is arrested by the police for doing so, then the school is well within its rights to suspend a student.  Same if a student brings drugs or alcohol onto school grounds.

However, the Westborough Public School system cannot make itself judge and jury over events that occur off of school grounds, especially events not witnessed by school or public officials and which therefore force these same officials to rely on hearsay testimony of other students – some of whom may have been impaired at the time the events occurred.

Far from sending the wrong message to kids, changing this policy to directly parallel the MIAA policy tells kids that they will not be punished for having the good judgment to back out of a situation that can put them in jeopardy, like leaving a gathering where drugs and alcohol are being used.

I asked my 17-year-old son what he thought of the policy and he had one word for it: “Stupid.”

The school system is doing its job by providing health and wellness classes where students are given instruction about drug and alcohol abuse and about how to avoid such situations. That being said, if the statistics cited in the "No Guilt By Association" blog post are correct we, as parents, are not doing our jobs.

The buck does not stop with Westborough Public Schools, it stops with us. We cannot prevent every child from making a bad choice at one or more points in their lives, no matter what we do or say. That being said, if we are not setting appropriate limits, or by our casual indifference, giving our kids the message that it’s OK not to know where they are, what they are doing and who they are with, then shame on us.

No school drug policy will change that, let alone a bad one like Westborough's.