If a middle or high school student wants to participate in extracurricular activities in Escambia County public schools, their parents must agree to let them be randomly drug tested. Key Clubs, Student Councils, Band and Chess Clubs—long seen as havens of illicit drug activity— will now be safer thanks to this new policy that will go into effect next school year.
At a special meeting yesterday, the School Board passed unanimously the new policy which also includes drug testing for those who use the campus parking. Here is the policy:Propsed Random Drug Testing Policy.
As reported earlier this week, the five-months of drug sweeps have only produced about half dozen illegal drug hits.
In tight budgetary times, why is the School District adding costs that don’t improve education?
If the worry is Key Clubs, Student Councils, Band members and Chess Clubs are using drugs, a novel approach might be to raise the academic standards to participate in extracurricular activities or to have the privilege of using campus parking.