OPINION - BREATH TESTS AT PROMS TEACH DISRESPECT FOR AMERICAN LAW

Every parent of teen-age kids knows the fears that arrive with the flowers
of May. The close of the school year is drawing near and that means prom and
graduation time, and the nagging fear that a loved one nurtured to the brink
of adulthood could suddenly fall into harm's way. Drugs and alcohol pose an
all too real menace, and many of us wish we could wave a wand and cast a
protective gauze around our children, keeping them safe until the magic
moment they reach maturity.

Of course, there is no magic. The best protection any of us can offer our
kids is simply teaching them good values: the importance of being
responsible, of staying sober, obeying the law, respecting authority. Most
parents recognize that. But that doesn't keep some of us from taking a step
or two toward magical solutions, like the plan afoot in Westport to make
kids take a breath analysis test before they can be admitted to the prom
next month. Margot desJardins, Westport's superintendent of schools, hasn't
formally embraced the breath test, but from her comments one might
reasonably conclude that she may be leaning that way.

"The worst nightmare is you hold a school function and someone ends up dead
or injured," the superintendent said the other day .

"With any school-sponsored activity, we have a certain responsibility. ...
When parents release their kids to you, they should have a level of comfort,
a standard they can expect."

Nobody can argue with that. But one can hope that as adults, we don't reach
beyond reason to attain that level of comfort. And that is what the breath
test proposal headed for the Westport School Committee does. Instead of
teaching our kids about true freedom by linking it to responsibility, the
breath test idea would teach them a false notion of freedom circumscribed by
a security device.

Instead of teaching young people respect for the law, the breath test would
teach them disrespect for the very basis of American law, the Bill of Rights
at the core of our Constitution.

Instead of teaching young people to trust authority, the breath analysis
would teach them quite the opposite because use of the device before the
prom would make crystal clear that those in authority don't respect the
rights of young people.

Adults can, of course, argue that kids have no rights, not in a legal sense,
until they reach the age of 18, and that parents and/or school officials can
impose whatever restrictions or rules they choose to impose, within the
limits of humane treatment, of course. And so, adults randomly search school
lockers, or send police dogs down school corridors to sniff out drugs,
operating on the assumption that illegal or prohibited substances will be
found, regardless of the basis for the assumption.

Perhaps, these tactics are important in keeping our schools safer and more
drug free.

We tend to doubt it. From what we hear, most kids caught with drugs or booze
or beer on school grounds get caught not by police dogs but after their own
lifestyle betrays them. Bad behavior becomes obvious, creating sufficient
cause for search and seizure operations. And that's the way it should be.

Educators shouldn't have to impinge on ordinary notions of what's sensible
and fair to maintain a safe and secure learning environment. High school
education is supposed to prepare young people for a role in a democracy and
part of the process is making them understand their rights as American
citizens.

We shouldn't make the point by obliterating those rights before the entire
student body on prom night.

But that's what some people in Westport seem inclined to do as we approach
the season of parental high anxiety. We hope that the superintendent of
schools and the School Committee majority are not among them.