Hey people how are ya? I am mega tired. Let me fill you in. I'm now working Tuesdays and Thursdays at the hospital on Ft. Benning from 8-12 and it is a big ole' pain in the @$$. I've got about 12 hours of Vol. Work done already. In addition we went through pre-inspection today. For you non-military ppl that is when someone comes to your little government issure home and tells you what you have to do to get another one at your new location. Well that went well but let me tell you what else. I have lived in this house 4 years and the plumbing is crappy the cabinets are old as hell the paint is never was in my 4 years actually white more af a beige but it was white once or so I'm told and the wall paper has been peeling since day one. Well now that we are going on The Limited Wardrobe Tour(my pet name for moving I'll explain that one later) in August they're comming to fix the doorbell that hasn't worked in about a year, they're redoing the wallpaper and the bathroom putting in new cabinets and repainting the house...my mother has been calling for these things since we moved in. whatever you know. Cat Hey Chick Listen up the following is a news article my tech crew found. It involves random drug testing with no parental consent. Also it says that these test have a 1 in 100 rate of being off. And for people I know that have smoked the weed hey yo that crap stays in your system for YEARS and it could show up now. Arm yourselves with knowledge cause it's not just the Athletes anymore like for steroids Oh no it's everyone clubs youth groups whole nine yard--heaven forbid you take some tylanol or antibiotics and then go to school ya know well here it is the first half is kinda raw but the second one is in more layman's terms read up! Oh and this is more written for parents then us but still.
Court OKs Random Drug Tests in Schools
Thu Jun 27,10:23 AM ET
By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court approved random drug tests for many public high school students Thursday, ruling that schools' interest in ridding their campuses of drugs outweighs an individual's right to privacy.
The 5-4 decision would allow the broadest drug testing the court has yet permitted for young people whom authorities have no particular reason to suspect of wrongdoing. It applies to students who join competitive after-school activities or teams, a category that includes many if not most middle-school and high-school students.
Previously these tests had been allowed only for student athletes.
"We find that testing students who participate in extracurricular activities is a reasonably effective means of addressing the school district's legitimate concerns in preventing, deterring and detecting drug use," Justice Clarence Thomas ( news - web sites) wrote for himself, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia ( news - web sites), Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer ( news - web sites).
The court stopped short of allowing random tests for any student, whether or not involved in extracurricular activities, but several justices have indicated they are interested in answering that question at some point.
The court ruled against a former Oklahoma high school honor student who competed on an academic quiz team and sang in the choir. Lindsay Earls, a self-described "goodie two-shoes," tested negative but sued over what she called a humiliating and accusatory policy.
The Pottawatomie County school system had considered testing all students. Instead, it settled for testing only those involved in extracurricular activities on the theory that by voluntarily representing the school, those students had a lower expectation of privacy than did students at large.
The ruling is a follow-up to a 1995 case, in which the court allowed random urine tests for student athletes. In that case, the court found that the school had a pervasive drug problem and that athletes were among the users. The court also found that athletes had less expectation of privacy.
Thursday's ruling is the logical next step, the Oklahoma school and its backers said, and the court majority agreed.
"The particular testing program upheld today is not reasonable, it is capricious, even perverse," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( news - web sites) wrote for the dissenters.
In a brief, separate dissent, Justices Sandra Day O'Connor ( news - web sites) and David Souter ( news - web sites) said they disagreed with the court's ruling in 1995 and disagree now.
Of the estimated 14 million American high school students, better than 50 percent probably participate in some form of organized after-school activity, educators say. The trend is toward ever greater extracurricular participation, largely because colleges consider it a factor in admissions.
Earls and the American Civil Liberties Union ( news - web sites) argued that the Oklahoma school board could not show that drugs were a big problem at Tecumseh High School. She claimed the "suspicionless" drug tests violated the Constitution's guarantee against unreasonable searches.
Pottawatomie educators, backed by the Bush administration, argued that any drug problem is a concern. Also, the school said, the drug tests were a deterrent for students who knew they could not participate in favorite activities unless they stayed clean.
During oral arguments in the case in March, a Bush administration lawyer said universal testing would be constitutional, even though a lawyer for the Oklahoma school said she doubted that would be so.
Numerous schools installed drug testing programs for athletes after the 1995 ruling, but wider drug testing remains relatively rare among the nation's 15,500 public school districts. Lower courts have reached differing conclusions about the practice.
The Tecumseh testing program ran for part of two school years, beginning in 1998. It was suspended after Earls and another student sued. Earls is now a student at Dartmouth College.
The Tecumseh policy covered a range of voluntary clubs and sports, including the Future Farmers of America club, cheerleading and football. Students were tested at the beginning of the school year. Thereafter, tests were random.
Overall, 505 high school students were tested for drug use. Three students, all of them athletes, tested positive.
A federal appeals court ruled against the program, saying it took the Supreme Court's 1995 ruling too far. Sports are different from other extracurricular activities, the lower court said, and the school had not done enough to show that students who participated in those activities were abusing drugs.
The school district appealed to the Supreme Court.
The case is Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls, 01-332.
Amarillo Voices: Drug testing students causes more hamr than good
By Brent Biles
Opinion
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing the case of Lindsay Earls vs. Tecumseh High School.
Ms. Earls was attending high school in the small town of Tecumseh, Okla., a couple of years ago when she was informed that if she wished to participate in the school choir, she would be required to undergo a drug test.
She was then ushered into the women's rest room, given a cup and told to step into the stall.
Part of her objection to the process was the fact that as she was filling the cup, three teachers stood outside the stall listening. She claims the process was humiliating and unnecessary.
There is, however, a more serious issue at stake in Earls vs. Tecumseh.
If the Supreme Court sides with Tecumseh High in this hearing, it will set a precedent that will give high schools freedom to test for drugs any student who wishes to participate in any extracurricular activity without parental permission.
In 1996, the court set a similar precedent that made it legal for schools to test athletes. The Earls case would be much more wide-ranging. In essence, it would mean that if your child wanted to participate in almost any activity at school outside the basic curriculum, he or she could be subjected to a drug screen without your permission. This would include band, choir, FFA, FHA, drama, speech club, chess club and any other activity you can imagine.
Essentially, it means that at one time or another, all high school students will be tested.
Some of you might recall a case in Lockney a couple of years back involving a man named Larry Tannahill. Mr. Tannahill refused to allow the Lockney school to test his son, Brady. As a result of that refusal, Brady was temporarily expelled from school, and Mr. Tannahill was fired from his job.
In March 2001, a federal district court in Texas struck down the Lockney school's drug-testing policy. Similarly, in Oklahoma, the Tecumseh testing policy was struck down by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In fact, all across the nation, federal courts have been rejecting the notion that schools should be able to implement broad-range testing policies in their schools.
So why am I talking about it here?
According to Washington insiders, it is a "done deal" that the Supreme Court will reverse the decision made by the 10th Court of Appeals and support Tecumseh's right to test students who wish to participate in extracurricular activities of any kind.
In fact, according to some sources, Republicans have had in the works for many years a plan to test all high school students. And this precedent, if it passes, will include almost all students between seventh and 12th grade. A line stealthily slipped into one of former President Clinton's education bills a few years back, and missed at the time by the authors of the bill, provides evidence of this plan. The line would allow schools to tap gigantic block funds of school money to pay for testing.
In other words, money that is being used to improve the quality of education in our schools instead would be used to pay for drug testing.
Now, I should say that I am not pro-drug use. In fact, I believe that prolonged drug use, just like alcohol or tobacco abuse, can lead to a number of problems for the abuser. I wonder, however, if testing is an effective way to prevent drug use.
Testing is most effective in detecting marijuana abuse, as evidence of that drug remains in the body for many days after use. Traces of other, more powerful drugs, such as cocaine or ecstasy, however, are often gone by the morning after.
Drug tests are notoriously unreliable as well, often failing to detect drug use or providing false-positives in as many as one in 100 tests. This means that in a school the size of Amarillo High, in any given year there is the possibility that as many as 10 innocent students could test positive for drugs. Imagine if it were your son or daughter who was faced with the stigma of being labeled a drug user.
Experts agree as well that drug testing is not the best policy. In a brief filed in support of Lindsay Earls, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, and the National Association of Social Workers said that "Tecumseh's policy does far more harm than good to the community's young people - rendering them, for example, more likely to drop out of school, less likely to be admitted to college, more likely to become involved with crime and more likely to use drugs."
I sincerely hope the justices of the Supreme Court will side with Lindsay Earls this week. However, I fear they will not. The conservative group of judges currently on the bench has consistently voted a hard line where drugs are concerned. This attitude sends the right message to kids, but at what cost?
Are you, as a parent, ready to give schools the right to test your child for drugs without your permission?
By the time you read this column, that question might be moot.
Court OKs Random Drug Tests in Schools
Thu Jun 27,10:23 AM ET
By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court approved random drug tests for many public high school students Thursday, ruling that schools' interest in ridding their campuses of drugs outweighs an individual's right to privacy.
The 5-4 decision would allow the broadest drug testing the court has yet permitted for young people whom authorities have no particular reason to suspect of wrongdoing. It applies to students who join competitive after-school activities or teams, a category that includes many if not most middle-school and high-school students.
Previously these tests had been allowed only for student athletes.
"We find that testing students who participate in extracurricular activities is a reasonably effective means of addressing the school district's legitimate concerns in preventing, deterring and detecting drug use," Justice Clarence Thomas ( news - web sites) wrote for himself, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia ( news - web sites), Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer ( news - web sites).
The court stopped short of allowing random tests for any student, whether or not involved in extracurricular activities, but several justices have indicated they are interested in answering that question at some point.
The court ruled against a former Oklahoma high school honor student who competed on an academic quiz team and sang in the choir. Lindsay Earls, a self-described "goodie two-shoes," tested negative but sued over what she called a humiliating and accusatory policy.
The Pottawatomie County school system had considered testing all students. Instead, it settled for testing only those involved in extracurricular activities on the theory that by voluntarily representing the school, those students had a lower expectation of privacy than did students at large.
The ruling is a follow-up to a 1995 case, in which the court allowed random urine tests for student athletes. In that case, the court found that the school had a pervasive drug problem and that athletes were among the users. The court also found that athletes had less expectation of privacy.
Thursday's ruling is the logical next step, the Oklahoma school and its backers said, and the court majority agreed.
"The particular testing program upheld today is not reasonable, it is capricious, even perverse," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( news - web sites) wrote for the dissenters.
In a brief, separate dissent, Justices Sandra Day O'Connor ( news - web sites) and David Souter ( news - web sites) said they disagreed with the court's ruling in 1995 and disagree now.
Of the estimated 14 million American high school students, better than 50 percent probably participate in some form of organized after-school activity, educators say. The trend is toward ever greater extracurricular participation, largely because colleges consider it a factor in admissions.
Earls and the American Civil Liberties Union ( news - web sites) argued that the Oklahoma school board could not show that drugs were a big problem at Tecumseh High School. She claimed the "suspicionless" drug tests violated the Constitution's guarantee against unreasonable searches.
Pottawatomie educators, backed by the Bush administration, argued that any drug problem is a concern. Also, the school said, the drug tests were a deterrent for students who knew they could not participate in favorite activities unless they stayed clean.
During oral arguments in the case in March, a Bush administration lawyer said universal testing would be constitutional, even though a lawyer for the Oklahoma school said she doubted that would be so.
Numerous schools installed drug testing programs for athletes after the 1995 ruling, but wider drug testing remains relatively rare among the nation's 15,500 public school districts. Lower courts have reached differing conclusions about the practice.
The Tecumseh testing program ran for part of two school years, beginning in 1998. It was suspended after Earls and another student sued. Earls is now a student at Dartmouth College.
The Tecumseh policy covered a range of voluntary clubs and sports, including the Future Farmers of America club, cheerleading and football. Students were tested at the beginning of the school year. Thereafter, tests were random.
Overall, 505 high school students were tested for drug use. Three students, all of them athletes, tested positive.
A federal appeals court ruled against the program, saying it took the Supreme Court's 1995 ruling too far. Sports are different from other extracurricular activities, the lower court said, and the school had not done enough to show that students who participated in those activities were abusing drugs.
The school district appealed to the Supreme Court.
The case is Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls, 01-332.
Amarillo Voices: Drug testing students causes more hamr than good
By Brent Biles
Opinion
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing the case of Lindsay Earls vs. Tecumseh High School.
Ms. Earls was attending high school in the small town of Tecumseh, Okla., a couple of years ago when she was informed that if she wished to participate in the school choir, she would be required to undergo a drug test.
She was then ushered into the women's rest room, given a cup and told to step into the stall.
Part of her objection to the process was the fact that as she was filling the cup, three teachers stood outside the stall listening. She claims the process was humiliating and unnecessary.
There is, however, a more serious issue at stake in Earls vs. Tecumseh.
If the Supreme Court sides with Tecumseh High in this hearing, it will set a precedent that will give high schools freedom to test for drugs any student who wishes to participate in any extracurricular activity without parental permission.
In 1996, the court set a similar precedent that made it legal for schools to test athletes. The Earls case would be much more wide-ranging. In essence, it would mean that if your child wanted to participate in almost any activity at school outside the basic curriculum, he or she could be subjected to a drug screen without your permission. This would include band, choir, FFA, FHA, drama, speech club, chess club and any other activity you can imagine.
Essentially, it means that at one time or another, all high school students will be tested.
Some of you might recall a case in Lockney a couple of years back involving a man named Larry Tannahill. Mr. Tannahill refused to allow the Lockney school to test his son, Brady. As a result of that refusal, Brady was temporarily expelled from school, and Mr. Tannahill was fired from his job.
In March 2001, a federal district court in Texas struck down the Lockney school's drug-testing policy. Similarly, in Oklahoma, the Tecumseh testing policy was struck down by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In fact, all across the nation, federal courts have been rejecting the notion that schools should be able to implement broad-range testing policies in their schools.
So why am I talking about it here?
According to Washington insiders, it is a "done deal" that the Supreme Court will reverse the decision made by the 10th Court of Appeals and support Tecumseh's right to test students who wish to participate in extracurricular activities of any kind.
In fact, according to some sources, Republicans have had in the works for many years a plan to test all high school students. And this precedent, if it passes, will include almost all students between seventh and 12th grade. A line stealthily slipped into one of former President Clinton's education bills a few years back, and missed at the time by the authors of the bill, provides evidence of this plan. The line would allow schools to tap gigantic block funds of school money to pay for testing.
In other words, money that is being used to improve the quality of education in our schools instead would be used to pay for drug testing.
Now, I should say that I am not pro-drug use. In fact, I believe that prolonged drug use, just like alcohol or tobacco abuse, can lead to a number of problems for the abuser. I wonder, however, if testing is an effective way to prevent drug use.
Testing is most effective in detecting marijuana abuse, as evidence of that drug remains in the body for many days after use. Traces of other, more powerful drugs, such as cocaine or ecstasy, however, are often gone by the morning after.
Drug tests are notoriously unreliable as well, often failing to detect drug use or providing false-positives in as many as one in 100 tests. This means that in a school the size of Amarillo High, in any given year there is the possibility that as many as 10 innocent students could test positive for drugs. Imagine if it were your son or daughter who was faced with the stigma of being labeled a drug user.
Experts agree as well that drug testing is not the best policy. In a brief filed in support of Lindsay Earls, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, and the National Association of Social Workers said that "Tecumseh's policy does far more harm than good to the community's young people - rendering them, for example, more likely to drop out of school, less likely to be admitted to college, more likely to become involved with crime and more likely to use drugs."
I sincerely hope the justices of the Supreme Court will side with Lindsay Earls this week. However, I fear they will not. The conservative group of judges currently on the bench has consistently voted a hard line where drugs are concerned. This attitude sends the right message to kids, but at what cost?
Are you, as a parent, ready to give schools the right to test your child for drugs without your permission?
By the time you read this column, that question might be moot.
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