CONFRONTING DRUGS

Empowering Parents Works Better Than Supplanting Them

"Please, someone, please - be the parent."

That was the echo that seemed to reverberate around many of the pleas
by parents, students and community members, as they stood before the
Williamsburg-James City County School Board and begged it to
implement student drug testing. They told heartfelt and
heart-wrenching stories of children, siblings and friends whose lives
had been left in shambles, or taken entirely, by drugs. Over and over
they asked: If there had been drug testing, might the problem have
been detected and the tragedy headed off?

What they were searching for was someone to do that testing, to get
involved. Someone to act like a parent.

The School Board wisely realized that its job is not to fill that
function by imposing drug testing on students, but to help parents
fulfill it by offering a voluntary testing program parents can choose
to take advantage of.

What a great idea for other schools, other organizations, other communities.

Assuming parents' responsibilities for them only undermines both
their authority and their willingness to exercise it. It worsens the
problems that come from under-involved and over-permissive parents.
And adds to the burden of schools already encumbered, not just by
academics, but by demands that they feed children breakfast and teach
them how to drive.

The smart approach, when it comes to drug testing, is to make this
technology available to parents. Not on its own, ideally, but
accompanied by information about drug and alcohol abuse and how to
detect signs of it in their children. Along with encouragement to
step up and assume their rights and obligations as parents: to
monitor their children's behavior and intervene when it heads in the
wrong direction - or, ideally, before.

Among those advocating for a school-imposed program was a
representative from a Williamsburg-area church. A community that has
its churches on board in the quest to raise strong young people is a
fortunate community. And this offers an opportunity to churches:
Organize a family-centered drug-testing program. Buy in-home test
kits in bulk and sell them to parents, or negotiate a contract with a
local lab so parents get a price break. Develop programs to inform,
encourage and support parents - even shake them up, in
acknowledgement of what parents and students told the School Board:
that many families are clueless or in denial when it comes to drugs
and alcohol. A church could reach beyond its congregation to take the
service and kits, as a ministry, to parents who would not otherwise be reached.

Who else could organize such an initiative? A civic group. A Healthy
Families program. A local youth commission. Any person or group that
cares about children and understands the dangers of drugs and alcohol.

Any school system can follow Williamsburg-James City County's lead
and use its reach - who else touches more families? - to offer
parents support and testing, whether in-home kits, an arrangement
with a local lab or testing on campus.

And, of course, parents don't have to wait for a program. Those home
kits are on the shelves of drug stores, and local labs are open for business.

The objective, in the end, is to equip and support parents so their
answer to the question "Will someone be the parent?" is "Yes: We will."