DRUG SEARCHES, TESTS REASONABLE REQUIREMENTS

I consider myself a defender of civil liberties and privacy rights,
but I'm having trouble getting worked up about disputes in our public
schools over searching students' lockers and testing teachers for drugs.

There are important privacy issues worth fighting over in the
post-9/11 world, but neither of these seem high on the list.

Keeping our schools safe and drug free is a high community priority,
and both of these measures are reasonable tools for school
administrators to have at their disposal as the schools update security.

The state Board of Education, which has wrestled for months over
random locker searches and use of drug-sniffing dogs on campuses,
last week sent the proposed rules back to the attorney general to
further tweak the language.

Meantime, the American Civil Liberties Union is trolling for clients
to challenge a provision in the new teachers' contract allowing
random drug tests.

When I hear complaints that locker searches and drug-sniffing dogs
would trample students' rights, I think of what I go through when I
use our airports. They search my bags, they make me take off my
shoes, they look in my pockets, I'm sniffed by beagles.

Why are students entitled to more privacy rights than their traveling parents?

University of Hawai'i law professor Jon Van Dyke says of random
locker searches, "What this policy assumes is that students are all
drug dealers, they're all alcoholics."

No more so than we assume that all airline passengers are terrorists.

Critics of locker and canine searches say they send the wrong message
to students, but there's nothing wrong with a message that drugs are
a grave concern in our community - enough so to move citizens to
demonstrate in the streets - and must stop at the schoolhouse door.

The extent of the drug problem varies from school to school, and
presumably principals would have the good judgment to apply the
security measures with restraint appropriate to the needs of each
individual school.

It strikes me as mostly an argument that adults are having with other
adults; I see little sign of students rising up in indignation over
the proposed searches.

At a recent workshop with high school journalism students, I found
them pretty comfortable with reasonable campus security measures as
long as the rules are clear to everyone and students aren't led to
expect privacy in situations where there would be none.

When I attended Hilo High, we didn't have lockers. We carried our
books and gym clothes in Pan Am bags - and if memory serves, the vice
principal felt free to check my bag for cigarettes anytime he
pleased. My sensitive young psyche survived.

As for random drug testing of teachers who have so much daily contact
with our children, there's certainly no epidemic of drug usage among
teachers, but there have been enough cases to cause concern.

It seems disingenuous for teachers to agree to a contract that
included drug testing to get 11 percent pay raises over two years,
and then try to sue their way out of the drug tests.

Some teachers claim they had no choice but to accept drug testing if
they wanted raises, but that wasn't so. There was nothing stopping
them from standing by their convictions, refusing a contract with
drug testing and daring Gov. Linda Lingle to let it become a strike issue.

Drug testing is increasingly common in labor contracts, from truck
drivers to baseball players.

School custodians and cafeteria workers represented by the United
Public Workers welcomed drug testing as an opportunity to set an
example for the community.

What's so different about teachers?