Student Drug Testing/ Searching

Do a post in which you come down firmly either in favor of or against drug testing in schools. Be specific and use information from class to support your point of view.
Drug testing in schools isn't right or constitutional. As a child, it makes sense that Fourth Amendment rights are limited and reduced because we are still very dependent on our parents. But as we grow and enter a High School setting, it shouldn't be true that our constitutionally guaranteed rights are partially taken away the second we walk through the front doors, or even park our cars. Because we are in the same building and in contact for much of week days, it makes sense that teachers and administrators would be concerned about student’s drug use. Despite these legitimate concerns, I don’t think that drug testing is the way to go about limiting drug use within schools. Being drug tested goes against the fundamental beliefs in the United States. The Fourth Amendment doesn’t specifically mention anything about schools and school searches. It’s not fair to the students, innocent or guilty, to be seen by their peers and teachers as a drug user until they prove that they aren’t with a negative drug test. “Indeed, many schools, like many parents, prefer to trust their children unless given reason to do otherwise. As James Acton’s father said on the witness stand, ‘[suspicionless testing] sends a message to children that are trying to be responsible citizens.. that they have to prove that they’re innocent…, and I think that kind of sets a bad tone for citizenship.” Drug testing students is therefore setting up a negative environment at school and making students prove themselves for something that does not necessarily have something to do with anything academic. Even if the school has a thousand reasons, like School District 92 of Pottawatomie County, it shouldn’t be the school’s responsibility to test students and making sure they aren’t doing drugs. The school should be using that money, if it is available, to better the school in terms of education and learning, not drug tests that may or may not work or could end up being a waste of money that in this economy, nobody can really afford to lose. The case in Arizona further proves that drug testing should not be addressed in this way by a school. In terms of searching and testing students, too much is left up to interpretation for school administrators and teachers. In any given school that regularly tests or searches their students, each school could have different way of viewing reasonableness and how much of a student’s constitutional rights are really taken away when they step foot onto school property. This leads to inconsistencies between school and states and can result in what happened to this girl in Arizona.