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[Flying Dice]

Wait, high schools are drug testing now? For club activities?

In terms of the parents being able to okay it, that seems reasonable, as they are still your legal guardians until you hit that magic number, and they already get their say on a number of other school-related consent forms, such as photo release forms and permission slips for trips and non-PG films. The fact that the school has just (to you) arbitrarily instituted drug testing to this extent does seem a bit off without any more information than that, but the proper response isn't to instantly assume the worst. Go to your year's counselor (they're there for a reason), talk to them, explain that you're wondering why the policy was changed. If you don't get a reasonable response from them, go to the school board.

If after all that the motivation is actually (unlikely) some sort of sinister plot to further limit the rights of students, then you should protest it. And no offense, but if your parents are the sort of people who would delegate that sort of thing to the public school system (IMO not much different from doing the same with sex ed) you've got a bigger problem, because parents should be able to honestly talk to their children about this sort of thing rather than leaving it to the government. Or maybe I'm just biased by my own experience (in high school my parents basically said "If you're going to get high or shitfaced drunk, don't be stupid about it." The irony of that is probably best left unexplored.).

[Sowelu]

At my (very small, not expensive) private HS, a teacher confided in me that he didn't like hats because it made it too easy to zone out and not make eye contact and that IS disruptive (and disrespctful).  Kids wore the bills super low or pulled the front down all the way over their eyes.  Better to say "no hats" than "you must make eye contact".  Much like "no passing notes" it removes a way to not pay attention.

Re extracurriculars looking good on college apps, so do jobs and they don't require drug testing OH WAIT.

(Actually, my job with a very major internet company didn't...)

[ed boy]

He wasn't telling the OP to accept it. There's a big difference between doing something and accepting it as the right thing to do. That's what manning up is all aobut - doing things that are necessary of him even if they are unpleasant. However, I do not agree with Strife's sentiment that the unpleasentness should be ignored or denied.

I believe the claim is that it isn't the right thing to do.

Here's how I understand the chain of quotes that was there went:
-OP posts about how he is not happy about the school as the ability to pressure people into drug tests
-Strife posts saying "It's not pleasant, but it's going to happen, so shut up and take your drug tests"
-MetalSlimeHumt posts saying "You shouldn't accept whatever authority figures tell you"
-I post saying "He doesn't have to pretend he likes it in order to do it"
-MetalSlimeHunt posts saying that Strife's post included pretending he likes it (that is, shutting up about it)
-I post explaining the difference between my position and Strife's

The school is only going to test people if it thinks it would be best if people were tested. Are you saying that you know better than the collective school administration what is a better thing to do?

Are you seriously implying that he shouldn't question the school administration?

Not at all. He should question the school administration plenty, what I'm saying is that he should also question himself. You can't consider your beliefs about drug testing to be superior to the schools unless you have questioned your beliefs just as thoroughly. It's something that shockingly few people do.

This gives me serious deja vu of this incident at my school. For the most it seems that the administration of schools are all for free speech and your rights (or so they say), as long as they can still do what they want.

The administration did not object to the fact that you objected. The administration objected to the method of your objecting. If you had expressed your problems through a more appropriate channel, you would have likely found them a lot more receptive.

It's not impossible to work around, but a lot of the system just assumes that if you're not doing an extracurricular you must be lazy so you'd better be damn good in other ways to make up for it. That's my experience, anyway.

Not really. Paper grades have their flaws, and you can't effectively judge people in fine detail based on their paper grades. In effect, they can only lump you into rough categories of "good grades", "bad grades", etc. Universities, if given the choice between someone who had good grades, or someone who had good grades and extracurriculars, they would opt for the latter.
In short, doing extracurriculars sends a whole load of messages, not just that you're not lazy.

[ChairmanPoo]

IIRC: you get the right to accept or reject a procedure by yourself (or rather, informed consent by representation disappears) from 16 onwards (and the criteria in medical deontology is that from 12 to 16, despite that you could get the informed consent from the minor's parents, you are to get it from the minor), barring incapacity

[MetalSlimeHunt]

At my (very small, not expensive) private HS, a teacher confided in me that he didn't like hats because it made it too easy to zone out and not make eye contact and that IS disruptive (and disrespctful).

No. There is nothing disrespectful about wearing a goddamn hat. Wearing a hat is not, nor has it ever been an insult. I wear my hood because I am cold, and these jerks see fit to through their power around, either "just because it's the rules" or "just because I can". Neither are valid reasoning.

[Frumple]

It wasn't wearing the hat that was the issue, but how it was being worn (at least in Sowelu's example) -- over the eyes, intentionally breaking eye contact, i.e. focus on the lesson. That is disrespectful and tends to have negative impact on the student's retention of the lesson to boot. The banning of the hats was simply because it's easier to enforce that than eye contact/attention.

That, at least, is a valid reason for the restriction. Not the best of reasons (ideally, lack of attention wouldn't be an issue), but it's not a bad one.

[Bauglir]

@Sowelu
Also, jobs are a private industry and can pretty much set arbitrary rules for hiring. Public schools aren't private industries, and attendance is mandatory or your parents have to take a very expensive and/or time-consuming alternative. Also if your job wasn't "Internship in whatever degree I'm looking at", then having had a job does nothing to help your chances of getting funding (other than your paycheck) and (my memory is pretty shaky on this point, though, so if somebody else knows better nevermind) less for your chances of acceptance than extracurriculars (for some bizarre reason).

My understanding of the rankings of various factors, in descending order, is basically:

Any recommendations you might happen to have (May not be relevant for college acceptance, usually required for monies)
Coursework (advanced courses? electives?)
Standardized Tests (SAT, ACT, AP exams)
GPA
Essays (May not be relevant for college acceptance, usually required for monies, can move up or down significantly depending on what you're applying for, exactly)
Extracurriculars
Work (If work is directly relevant to degree, moves up above coursework)
Fluff

EDIT: Anything that is expressed as a number, by the way, is almost entirely used for cutoffs. Typically, the actual number is irrelevant as long as it is high enough, but anything below it is discarded to reduce the number of applications that actually need to be read.

Mind, none of the above holds for a trade school or similar, just for scholarships and 4-year degree programs and the like. Ignore my ramblings if that's got nothing to do with your plan.

Not really. Paper grades have their flaws, and you can't effectively judge people in fine detail based on their paper grades. In effect, they can only lump you into rough categories of "good grades", "bad grades", etc. Universities, if given the choice between someone who had good grades, or someone who had good grades and extracurriculars, they would opt for the latter.
In short, doing extracurriculars sends a whole load of messages, not just that you're not lazy.

I don't see how anything but your conclusion differs from what I said. I didn't say that was the only message doing them sent, but that not doing them can send the message that you are lazy. What I was saying is that that can be worked around by being excellent in every other regard, but having to sacrifice this part of your application on principle is not a reasonable option, especially if you were aiming for the sort of scholarship that is awarded entirely based on school-sponsored extracurriculars.

[ed boy]

My bad, I must have misread your post.

[Montague]

Universities and organizations that hand-out scholarships like extracurriculars and electives because it makes you seem motivated and able to stay busy and commit to something. Part time jobs are really even more impressive then extracurriculars for this reason. Of course, community colleges and trade schools don't care about any of that, drop out and get your GED and go straight to one of those.
People coming out of two-year trade schools make more money on average then anybody trying to get a job with something like a four-year liberal arts degree from a university. But I digress.

The way I see it, if somebody is hell-bent on getting into a "good" university and being a serious and successful student, then it stands to reason they'd be willing to put down the pipe long enough to pass the silly random high school piss tests.

[Duuvian]

Pre-warning: this post will be a jumble of confusion until I am finished editing it at which point this sentence will be removed.

I haven't gone through the whole thread, just responding to the OP but:

I bet they don't test for tobacco, do they?

EDIT:

The way I see it, if somebody is hell-bent on getting into a "good" university and being a serious and successful student, then it stands to reason they'd be willing to put down the pipe long enough to pass the silly random high school piss tests.

I'm assuming we are talking about pot. Should they be forced to though? If they are already working for free for job experience, such as veterinarians are required to do before entering Michigan State University, and providing money to the university in one form or another, where is the line to be drawn? At which point is it no longer fair for the institution to dictate requirements that are outside their jurisdiction? If two people qualify for a school through the work they have done, both socially drink alcohol but one smokes pot socially, why is the smoker less viable? Is it because of the stigma associated with pot, or because pot is worse than alcohol, or is it because pot is technically bad because it is an overly controlled substance and people from all walks of life and layers of society have found ways to profit (monetarily or socially) from such a black market, whether by enforcing the laws or breaking them? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition

(my final note on pot is that, yes, it should definitely be regulated or else you have large corporations that take over the vast share of the business, and somehow they probably will manage to keep their product out of the drug tests because it must be ok if a company sells it somehow because they have lots of money and lawyers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_industry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robitussin

Spoiler: The tussin, the tussin (click to show/hide)

[a note on the tussin, just so I don't give someone a really bad experience. You want the dex kind if you were to experiment with it, but I recommend only trying it once if you are already determined to do so (I am not recommending you try it, this is simply so that if you do decide to experiment due to something you read on the internet it isn't a series of hypothetically dangerous trials and errors. Dex is very hard to overdose on in 15mg syrup form, but some of the other things they put in alongside it in some of the tuss products can be easily immediately dangerous) as it is quite possibly as addictive as any other mood changing drug is. The Guaifenesin kind will make your sinuses very dry, which could be painful or dangerous so avoid that. The kind with only Dextromethorphan in it will likely be safe to take in small amounts depending on the brand, but be warned, dex is very potent for about 8 hours and the following day you may feel strange depending on the dosage. Also, I mention the differences in brands as I know that there is a Vicks product (Custom Care I think is the product name) robotussin to stay away from that has Dextromethorphan written as the only listed active ingredient but it also contains baking soda as an inactive ingredient so apparently it makes your body unable to control internal fluids so your legs or feet swell up temporarily if you drink upon that sort of tuss potion in excess of the recommended amount. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edema
 I suppose you would want to look in the inactive ingredients to see if there are things such as baking soda (sodium bicarbonate I believe is the scientific term.]

   However, if you want to look at a well written law covering the distribution of controlled plant products, check out the Michigan Marihuana Program: The meat and potatos)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There are many more valid things to be rallying against. Where I live, for example, schools do not allow kids to wear hats. Why? Potential gang signs. Nevermind that we've never really had a problem with gangs, or that the rule is completely and utterly ineffectual even if we did (any piece of clothing, mannerism, or saying can be turned into a "gang sign"). Can't wear hats, pretty much just 'cause.

Wait, hats? Really? I don't think anybody cares about high school kids wearing hats or not, except gang members and show-offs with expensive hats.

In my high school hats were also not allowed, along with every other trivial limit they could impose upon us, with the usual excuse given that they were a 'distraction.' In reality it is simply another way of imposing the administrator's will upon their subjects. In this way the students are made to feel as if they are not in control of any aspect of their surroundings, which of course prepares them to continue jumping through the hoops for someone in adult life. To me this seems like a needless waste of energy, since breaking someone's will is not a good way to get them started on the road to success in my book.

Secondly, I also had one of those attendance policies in place at my school where you can only miss 8 days. This sounds good on paper but in reality it was used as a tool to remove kids that did not get along with the favored as suspensions were either 1 or 5 or 10 days. Can you guess who got the 5 day suspensions and who got the 10? Being able to threaten a high schooler with nullifying a whole schoolyear due to a moderate infraction of the rules is draconian in my book. I knew several kids who were expelled from school for a year for relatively minor (for an adult) infractions. Often times it was when they finally reacted to being picked on for years by the least punishable students, the sons of important local business owners who also are on the school board.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In my area there is one private lake that caters to the wealthiest in the area, and in addition to having the nicest material things (one of these students burned out the engine in his brand new big truck doing something stupid [we weren't allowed to talk about it in class because that would have been 'picking on him' so I don't know what he did since we weren't supposed to ask questions in class of the people who might know what happened, and the only time it would have been possible to ask was in class since we were ostracized from their parties and social things] and he showed up the next week in another brand new truck.)

The students from there were also treated preferably by the school due to the weight their parents carried in the community and the school board and such. This extended to the point where myself and others behaved relatively like angels (by that I mean we were either nice to people or ignored them

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[I should have done less ignoring in retrospect]

instead of competing or bullying them to be at the top of the social pyramid) compared to what those kids got away with to avoid getting in enough trouble to be sent to the 'alternative high school'

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(which was a total joke even compared to the normal high school, the principal there was well known by everyone to be a jovial cokehead (although from hearsay he was not a terrible or bad person; he apparently was actually a pretty good guy though I never met him; the kids he dealt with were so sick of the education system that they were far from upset about attending the alternate high school; most had a much better time there socially although I doubt educationally; while the atmosphere seemed more friendly and casual there the standards of learning were abysmal)

while the wealthy kids partied it up outside of school and copied from our tests in it.

Also I should note that I went to a public school. I don't think public schools are bad; in fact quite the opposite. I just think that mine was run by people more concerned with operating smoothly than fairly, and also by people who had an interest in making sure some kids 'succeed' (by which I mean not flunk like I would have had I done what they did) regardless of the effort put into study. My former high school had a sit in protest once (for one day because those who continued would have received a 10 day suspension) because a teacher who actually tried to lighten the burden of the more downtrodden students was laid off simply because she was about to fulfill her contract agreement where she would have gotten access to some sort of stipend for having worked for x amount of time at the school, which was of course not a problem for teachers who didn't go well out of their way to be very nice to me and people like myself.

Also, before I am accused of playing the victim, my high school was not absolutely terrible I suppose. I and my friends had to sneak around like I said to avoid being targeted by both administrators who thought bad apples infect others, despite the fact the apples weren't too bad until they are thrown out; and also we had to ignore the students that used their hierarchy to make life tougher for us. For example, my group of friends enjoyed hackey-sacking outside the school doors during lunchtime. We had started indoors but hackey-sack can be most violent towards your surroundings, so when the time came for the principal to raise the issue with us we were able to request special permission to stand outside the school doors to hack. This continued happily for some time, until our peers who we sought to avoid started to raise claims of discrimination in that they were not allowed outside as well. This may seem justifiable, yet you should remember that these are what we called 'party people' who would eventually push the limit as far as they can because they won't get in much trouble. The school administration capitulated to these claims of unfairness, after a bit of resistance (for which I give them a lot of credit, I'm sure they were doing the best they could in their situation and it was nice of whoever of them to try to give us some space) and quite quickly the distinction between outside and cafeteria was negligible. Unfortunately in my youth I was somewhat nonchalant about the consequences of making a biodegradable mess outside. Apparently ketchup will stick to brick walls and become a solid chunky stain once exposed to Autumn's dry air for a weekend. As far as I know that was the worst I did regarding screwing up that situation, and it was a minor yet visible stain, but since the number of people out there was quite large on nice days it was inevitable that eventually enough things like that would screw something up. I don't even know what it was, but the official reason given was something to do with security reasons as those darn 'screwup' kids from the alternate high school would occasionally visit their old friends. I've always felt that flagrant ketchup stain may have played a part though.

So, anyways, there is my personal story about Minor's Rights. Take from it what you will. Also I've long forgiven my classmates, teachers, and other administrators. I think they were doing the best they felt they could. Basically it went from a small hack circle to half the cafeteria spilling outdoors even in winter just for the freedom of being outside for a short while.

[Montague]

I haven't gone through the whole thread, just responding to the OP but:

I bet they don't test for tobacco, do they?

Consumption or possession of tobacco by minors is technically legal in the USA. Laws only forbid the sale of tobacco to minors.

So I imagine they don't bother testing for it.

[Strife26]

Deal with it. Life ain't fair. Act like a semi-responsible adult, taking a bloody piss test isn't a big deal by any stretch of the mind.

Deal with it. Life ain't fair. Act like a semi-responsible adult, reporting traitors to the Great Leader isn't a big deal by any stretch of the mind.

Don't strawman. Strife was telling the OP to man up about it. Manning up entails doing something you don't want to, but it does not entail pretending you like it.

Strife was telling the OP to shut up and accept injustice because....why, exactly? I was simply pointing out how irrational that is.

He wasn't telling the OP to accept it. There's a big difference between doing something and accepting it as the right thing to do. That's what manning up is all aobut - doing things that are necessary of him even if they are unpleasant. However, I do not agree with Strife's sentiment that the unpleasentness should be ignored or denied.

Honestly, I didn't even track that we're complaining it from the unjust side. I just figured it was due to the inconvenient.

Justically speaking, it's clearly legal. Stop and frisk is clearly authorized by the Supreme Court (feel free to look up the case), and random drug testing is a step below that, as far as infringement of privacy goes. Take your umbra and shove it. It's a reasonable step to take to ensuing a proper learning environment, both for the individual and the group.

If you want to whine about something, make it something that actually matters, not a one in a hundred chance at 15 minutes of your time and a one in two hundred chance that you're non-existent cannabis habit will come to light. If you really need to feel better, pretend that it's like jury duty, a constraint you have to deal with to be part of society, that while annoying and an infringement of your time/privacy, is beneficial.

[Flying Dice]

At my (very small, not expensive) private HS, a teacher confided in me that he didn't like hats because it made it too easy to zone out and not make eye contact and that IS disruptive (and disrespctful).  Kids wore the bills super low or pulled the front down all the way over their eyes.  Better to say "no hats" than "you must make eye contact".  Much like "no passing notes" it removes a way to not pay attention.

Re extracurriculars looking good on college apps, so do jobs and they don't require drug testing OH WAIT.

(Actually, my job with a very major internet company didn't...)

I completely agree with the bit about hats, as I always wear a baseball cap to my more boring lectures so I can be not entirely obvious about drifting off, because that tends to piss the professors off for some reason. Well, some of them.

And I would argue that there is a substantial difference between drug testing employees and drug testing students. My job when I'm not in classes involves both customer interaction and working lines on a river boat, both things which don't mix well with drugs. If I go to work high, I'm endangering customers, co-workers and myself, but if I went to high school high all I endangered was my education, such that is was. Not that I think drugs make a serious impact on the quality of the education you get from the public school system, even in the case of an individual I knew who started smoking marijuana habitally in 6th grade, was addicted to heroin at 16 and still managed to graduate on time. Easily half of the top ten or fifteen students in my class were heavy drinkers or smoked marijuana on a regular basis. Lesson? The U.S. public school system is a joke. And we were taking International Baccalaureate (think of it as college courses in high school, held to international standards), as well as more standard AP courses, not the bottom line classes designed to pass the lowest common denominator.

The point is, apart from ethics concerns about sports, and preventing drug use at school, the school administration (in my opinion) doesn't have any business trying to control a student's drug use, either morally (it really isn't their business, unless it is so severe that the student is in danger of failing, in which case:), or legally, in which case it should be the police taking care of it, rather than the schools. Random drug testing doesn't do anything but generate hostility. If they really, really want to do it, then they should make it mandatory, possibly as part of a wider health and fitness exam, rather than this sort of half-assed thing that pisses students off just by being vaguely threatening.

[Montague]

The point is, apart from ethics concerns about sports, and preventing drug use at school, the school administration (in my opinion) doesn't have any business trying to control a student's drug use, either morally (it really isn't their business, unless it is so severe that the student is in danger of failing, in which case:), or legally, in which case it should be the police taking care of it, rather than the schools. Random drug testing doesn't do anything but generate hostility. If they really, really want to do it, then they should make it mandatory, possibly as part of a wider health and fitness exam, rather than this sort of half-assed thing that pisses students off just by being vaguely threatening.

I'm just going to point out that ultimately the same folks that run public schools run the police. So it sort of is their business.

Its one of the downsides of having government run an institution. Policy from one end of the government can effect another end. Its why taxes on cigarettes, fatty foods, salt and alcohol would sky-rocket if there was universal health-care. Because all of the sudden the crap people shovel in their mouths becomes the concern of the government, much like the chemical make-up of high school student pee becomes the interest of school administration.

Anyways, I agree that it probably won't help anything, but the government is basically obligated to do crap like this if it is going to efficiently work toward the goals set out for it.

[Grek]

On a slightly more distressing note:

When I was 7, my parents gave the state on Texas my consent to take my fingerprints and a DNA sample for a criminal fingerprint/DNA database under the pretense that it would be used to locate me in the event that I was kidnapped or went missing. To this day, my information is on file along with my SS number, date of birth and other state records as well as my current address. I have no legal recourse for getting my information removed from the database as, legally speaking, "I" consented to give it over to the state and cannot take back my permission.

E: A few years later, I was accused of stealing 40$ from a school bake sale. A civil case was raised over it, and as such, the one and only judge in the county that handled civil cases vs. minors offered me the following option: Accept a plea of "No Contest" and pay the school 40$, or plea "Not Guilty", hire a lawyer (as a minor, I was not allowed to represent myself; as my parents had no legal training, they could not represent me; as it was a civil case, I was not entitled to a public defender) and then go to a hearing with the same judge that was offering me the plea bargin (no jury, of course) and have my lawyer present a case for why I shouldn't be fined for lying to the court in addition to the 40$ in damages.

Ain't Texas great?