SCHOOL SHOULD HELP KIDS SAY 'NO'

TULIA - Reasonable parents and citizens surely must realize that Tulia High
School is obligated to continue its random drug-testing program, and
thoughtful adults will encourage expanding the program to include as many
students as the law will allow.

Further, more school systems should accept their obligation to do the same
for their students.

When we accepted the responsibility of educating our children and students,
we agreed to give them standards, guidance and protection as they gradually
developed their own set of values to lead them through adult life.

During my almost 40 years in the classroom, I have become increasingly
aware that the young person who is "asking for it" is really asking for help.

If our age and experience has value at all, it is in the ability to see
that firm boundaries give people the security to seek their own paths.

With today's shifting standards and relative values, young people, more
than ever, look to the adults around them for definite statements that
"this is right, and that is absolutely wrong." As educators, we are
obligated to clearly state our values and uphold our convictions.

Illegal drug use is destructive to relationships, dangerous to health and
thus just plain wrong. How can we do any less than state that clearly to
the young adults we guide and direct? The drug policy tells them exactly
where we stand on the issue.

High school students are young adults without a doubt. But they are young
adults.

As such, they cannot be expected to resist the temptation of "forbidden
fruit" without guidance and support. Few of our young people come from the
"Father Knows Best" homes of the 1950s. While the guidance surely should
come from the home, too often it sadly does not.

If all of our students are to be able to "just say no," schools must
support them by giving them a reason to do so.

No partying teen will harass the students who say, "No, I can't - they
might test me in the morning," but many of the misguided ones will continue
to insist and argue with students who say, "No, I don't believe in using
drugs."

As guiding adults, we must require ourselves to support them in their
efforts to resist.

Finally, regarding the question of taking away the students' rights, we
must admit that our legal system has long recognized that these teen-agers
are not yet full citizens. They do not have full responsibilities or full
rights. Parents and school systems, which serve "in loci parentis," are
obliged to protect young people from their immature errors in judgment by
assuming some of those rights and responsibilities.

The random drug-testing policy gives that protection to participants in our
athletic and extracurricular programs, and I thank the good Lord for that.
How I wish we could extend that protection to all the young adults under
our care.