Breathalyzer test required for Homecoming Dance

This kind of stuff should ALWAYS have to pass a "probable cause" test. If you want teachers to act like police, they should follow police procedure. Times change, and not always for the better. Things have occurred that opened my eyes to this.
The scariest realization for me was that my high school- where I had 'open carried' a 5" fixed blade knife and a Pocket Tool in a sheath on my belt, which teachers and other staff often borrowed for various tasks- now has metal detectors at every door, backpacks aren't allowed (you could hide something), and it has a FULL TIME NARCOTICS OFFICER. What happened to "MY SCHOOL?" How did things get from what I remember to 'a junior version of state prison' in less than 20 years?
 
And here we have some perfect examples of what Blue Train called the dichotomy between "authoritarian" and "libertarian" approaches.

I favor the libertarian approach. He governs best who governs least; when in doubt, side with the rights of the individual; innocence, not guilt, is presumed; burden is on the authorities to prove a need for any encroachment upon basic rights and dignity; punish those who commit offenses, don't regulate the law-abiding in the hopes of making offenses impossible - it can't be done, and can't even be approximated without serious encroachments against the individual.

Oddly, lots of people on the forum howl about many of those points, as they pertain to gun rights. Gun Free Zones only disarm the law abiding; right to carry should be constitutional, and not require a permit; permits should be "shall issue."

So you say that's a Constitutionally protected right? Until recently, it wasn't recognized as such for the individual, so be careful with that argument - unless you mean arguments prior to Heller and MacDonald were based on hope.

But even if we concede that point, nobody in here seemed to like the idea of an automated system of speed governors on cars... I'm betting that breathalyzer ignition systems for all cars wouldn't wash, either. I'm pretty sure nobody wants the insurance companies to be able to periodically check their car computers, nor the police to be able to do the same, without warrant or cause.

So now you say, "but these are only kids!" Well, first off, some of those kids are 18. I have a huge problem with a drinking age that criminalizes an act because somebody is under 21, then puts them in jeopardy in adult court because they are 18. It's utter BS, as far as I am concerned. Either they are kids, and should be handled as juveniles, or they are adults, and should have the privileges that go with the burdens. I don't care about the utilitarian/safety argument on this one, it's just wrong on its face.

Or maybe we should ban handguns?

But now you say, most of those kids are under 18! And the school is acting in loco parentis. I have a hard time with that argument, if there isn't agreement among the actual parents as to whether this policy is appropriate. If the school is enforcing a policy not favored by the parents, they aren't acting as representatives of the parents on scene, but instead are enforcing their own viewpoints under governmental fiat.

I'd also say that court rulings that deny minors the rights accorded to adults are not always correct. And I see no reason why any school staffer should be allowed to ever waive a student's rights with the law when acting in loco parentis.

Then again, I see no value in zero tolerance policies, nor many of the other approaches that lazy administrators, teachers, police officers, and yes, parents have taken in dealing with kids. The system has dumbed itself down.
 
This kind of stuff should ALWAYS have to pass a 'probable cause' test.
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If you could get everyone to agree to that, you could never get everyone to agree what 'probable cause' would be....

...Is probable cause actually smelling alcohol on a child...

...Is it having to actually catch a child with alcohol/drugs on them during the school function...

...Would probable cause consist of known alcohol/drug issues in recent past school functions? Maybe resulting in injury or death of someone maybe either at the function or as they were leaving.

To some parents, it just wouldn't matter. They wouldn't agree to a BAT at school functions for whatever the reason. I just wonder if 'GOD forbid', something happened to their child due to alcohol/drugs at a school function, would they hold the school accountable.

I don't know an answer to the OP's situation. Maybe the school should not have the BAT before the dance, don't know why they thought the need to have it in the first place. Maybe the school should just send waivers home to get signed by the parents releasing the school of any liability of the child if they attend the function. Or if the school has had enough issue's warranting BAT at school functions, just cancel all extracurricular activities.

Boy, I'm glad my kids have graduated!:cool:
 
zukiphile, it is for non-lawyers.

Those who make their living understanding and interpreting complex and ambiguously worded laws and ordinances probably don't prefer the streamlined and minimalist approach. If the law were clear, and if laws were only passed when really needed - instead of as a means of scoring political points - then many lawyers would find themselves with a lot less work, income, and influence.

Hey, you asked for pedagogic.... What do they say about a good lawyer never asking a question to which he doesn't know the answer beforehand?

But I stand by my points.
 
MLeake said:
Hey, you asked for pedagogic....
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Are you suggesting that libertarianism is a theory of teaching?

MLeake said:
But I stand by my points.
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I wouldn't ask you to abandon your points. I am trying to explore them.

I genreally admire a live and let live approach that doesn't prefer to impose a majority will just because it can be imposed.

However, education is very much a matter of indoctrination, monitoring, control and testing. If my kindergartener's teacher let my five year old leave school to play in the street, giving an explanation that she lacked PC to "detain" my daughter, my reaction would be intemperate.

We expect different things from schools and government. Wouldn't you agree?
 
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zukiphile, going back to in loco parentis, no reasonable parent would allow their 5yo to play in the street.

However, most reasonable parents don't breathalyze their kids.

Keeping the 5yo out of traffic is not an overreach... neither would keeping the 5yo in school during normal hours, or not letting the 5yo depart the school in the company of any adult not pre-approved by the parents.

Keeping a kindergartner from stealing another's toy would be in keeping with what most reasonable parents would do. Indoctrinating them in treating others as they would like to be treated is also reasonable, as well as useful.

Indoctrinating a bunch of kids to sing a song praising a newly elected President, not so much.

Giving a kid a zero, possibly suspending him, for cheating on an exam is within societal norms for handling such a problem. Note: This is after cheating has been proven; this normally requires suspicion of cheating in the first place.

There are any number of ways in which schools can regulate behavior, that would not be out of the norm as far as parental regulation of behavior goes.

Mass breathalyzing does not meet that criterion, in my opinion.

Also, there are very few circumstances where I can see a need for a school to take any major action without notifying the parent(s) and waiting for the parent(s) to arrive on scene, to take over the situation. Or, if the parents are uncooperative, to be present while the problem is initially handled, even if they don't assist in its handling.
 
MLeake said:
zukiphile, going back to in loco parentis, no reasonable parent would allow their 5yo to play in the street.

However, most reasonable parents don't breathalyze their kids.
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I've seen to many parents check a teen's breath for alcohol before handing over the keys to accept that assertion uncritically. A teen might think that is unreasonable, but since we don't generally hold that a minor has a privacy interest in his drinking, it doesn't seem obviously or objectively unreasonable.
 
I'm guessing the parents you've seen doing so, were prompted to do so by prior behavioral incidents with their kids.

I've never seen any of my friends do this to their high school age kids.

Then again, most of my friends are pretty involved with their kids, and those kids tend to be pretty well-behaved. Good grades, involved with school athletics and clubs, etc.

I suspect that if my friends treated their kids with the suspicion suggested by random breath tests, those kids would actually not be so well-behaved, nor such high achievers.

What is that saying about people living either up to your expectations, or else down to them?
 
MLeake said:
I'm guessing the parents you've seen doing so, were prompted to do so by prior behavioral incidents with their kids.
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I would state my guess differently. There are two kinds of highschool kids who drink; 1) those whose parents know they drink, and 2) those whose parents don't know they drink.

Even if your child has not been drinking and you test for it, you communicate an intolerance.

MLeake said:
I suspect that if my friends treated their kids with the suspicion suggested by random breath tests, those kids would actually not be so well-behaved, nor such high achievers.
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Random testing is a different topic. Wouldn't you agree?

I find it implausible that a parent's inquiry about drinking before a teen gets car keys would push a teen into drinking.

When I was that age the one whose car was conveying us typically abstained. We didn't call it a "designated driver" as they do now; it was more a matter of "my father will kick my rear if I come home drunk tonight".
 
Personally, it isn't my problem...it's my kid's problem. 13 years ago when I was in high school I never drank alcohol and I still would not have gone to a party where a breathalyzer was administered. Let the child decide if they are willing to allow the school to treat them like a guilty party. Explain to the kids the consequences of living in a police state (or Big Brother country). Let the kid figure out what the appropriate response is. This is a good learning tool.

Breathalyzers may give you an indication of how much alcohol a kid slammed before showing up...but it doesn't tip you off to the kid that snorted three lines of coke in the parking lot 5 minutes ago...Test for one but forget the rest? I don't know...the whole thing just never sits well with me. I'd rather dance alone than subject myself to overbearing authority.
 
That was an excellent post.

I think there are other issues not mentioned so far (I think). For one thing, it is possible that the principall of the school is exercising more authority than he really has. I doubt that any direction was received from the school board or anyone else in the country to conduct tests like that. He could just as well decide he needed to make sure all the girls were wearing proper underwear. And while a public school, assuming that what this was, is operated by the local government, it is not government in the same sense as the police department. The school has no police functions. If, on the other hand, it was the police department there administering the tests, it would be a different story.

Now another funny thing here is that many people who might object to such a thing happening might also be the sort of parent who would be in favor of corporal punishment in school, though I could be way off base on that point. Nevertheless, I do read comments in many places that kids (not defined) are "out of control."
 
We didn't call it a "designated driver" as they do now; it was more of a "my father will kick my butt if I come home drunk tonight".
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Yep, and coachs played a big part also.

I remember as a junior, we had our Friday evening wrestling meet in which the coach told us that those that won their matchs, didn't have Sat. morning practice. Those that lost their matchs had to be at school Sat. , 0800 for practice.

We had a very good meet with only a few guys losing a couple matchs. Coach said that since the majority of the team did so well, nobody practiced Sat. morning but the guys that lost their matchs owed the rest of the team.;)

Well, in the locker room, we decided to party over at a wrestlers house of which his parents owned a bar. Needless to say the house was well stocked.

We didn't know but the coach overheard us making plans but figured we'ed be supervised by one of our buddies parents.

Coach just happened to stop in the bar on his way home owned by the kids parents for a beer and both parents were working at the bar. Coach never said a word to them but when he left the bar he headed straight for our party.

We had been partying in style for about 3-4 hrs when coach showed up and busted us. He was more than just alittle upset.:eek: Made us clean up the house/yard . He then made three of us walk home as we lived close by. He ended up taking 8-9 kids home....and yes, we had to be at practice at 0800 Sat. morning.
Ever have to run laps and barf at the same time while coach ran with ya asking you if you wanted a beer and telling you, you can quit , he'd take you home and tell your parents about last night. :o

It was a trust thing in which coach drilled into us and reminded us throughtout the rest of that year and the next year.

Probably if the parents found all this out, some would have been mad they weren't notified. But I'll tell ya what that did for many of us on the team. Even though coach like to ran us to death that Sat., we respected him and he was a big influence throughout a few of our lives.
 
My parents would not only back me up in my fight for my individual rights but would assist me in developing a good way to protest such totalitarian encroachment...

So they just told the kids, "NO ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION WILL BE TOLERATED" "Instead, we ask that you consume federally forbidden narcotics..."

Brent
 
If we are describing a principal who is testing for alcohol to get into a dance as a "totalitarian encroachment", I believe we have wandered into a pastiche of reasonable concerns about civil liberties.
 
But the delima was always there. What else could it have been? In this country we are assumed innocent until proven guilty. So why should I have to take a test to prove I'm innocent. That in itself makes it very wrong. It seems so wrong to me that I can't believe the ones who are teaching our children can't see what their actually doing.

AND I agree, we have wondered into a hodge podge of reasonable concerns about civil liberties.

I say to you brotherin, he has seen the light.
 
What would cause this school system to suspect every child of committing a crime?

Ain't they ever learned to look for the signs of impairment as a way to determine who is "suspicious"?

Don't they know that he kids can get in sober and drink from hip flasks all night while in the gymnasium?

Brent
 
Well ofcourse they use this as a deterrent to keep the students from getting drunk and unruly and destructive... if a teacher were to try to physically restrain an unruly student someone would have the ACLU on speed-dial. :eek:
 
When I was a student, this would have been a deterrent to my attendance.

Hmm, let's see.... how many disciplinary infractions did I have at my high school. Ummmm.... oh, yeah, none.

National Honor Society, check. Advanced Placement, check. Gifted classes, check. Wrestling team, check. Florida Academic Scholar, check. National Merit Scholar, check.

And I would have boycotted any event that would require me to submit to a breathalyzer, even though I very rarely drank, and never did at school functions or when driving.

I'd have been offended by the implication that I had to prove my "innocence" in order to attend. I'd have been angered by the arrogance of those who felt that, as a sixteen or seventeen year old, I should not expect any 4th Amendment protections. And I'd probably have found some way to make the administration feel my irritation - in the sense of letters to the editor, complaints to the ACLU, etc.

My parents, who were always active in the PTA (and who raised not only one kid who didn't get into trouble, and who was an achiever, but two - actually, my little sister is an associate VP at Rutgers these days....) would have raised a hue and cry over the breathalyzer plan, too.

And, FWIW, my mother was old school Sicilian - she was NOT the "my child can do no wrong" type. She was the "if they cause problems, let us know, and they will NOT be repeated" type. Somehow, none of our teachers ever needed to report anything to Mom.

When dealing with my godson, I never used threats, searches, etc. I'd just tell him what I expected of him, or, when possible, lead by example. His parents had the same approach. He's 19 now, attends WVU, and he opens doors at restaurants for old people and all that. He's a full-time student with a part-time job, attending on a student loan with no co-signer (plus a partial scholarship).

Again, kids will live up to your expectations, or else they will live down to them. Breathalyzers, zero tolerance policies, and their ilk are "feel-good" measures, instituted by the incompetent or lazy who do not want to actually put in the effort to motivate good behavior or to recognize the signs of impending trouble.
 
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