Confidential and Beneficial
The worst fears of many students having materialized a few weeks ago, few conversations can avoid the Wellness Initiative, and fewer proponents of the policy walk the Saint Ignatius halls. However, reflection indicates that this program’s merits outweigh the drawbacks.
First of all, this Wellness Initiative is not punitive: Positive-testers will not have to deal with the stress of punishments. The emphasis of the Wellness Initiative is strictly the health of the student body.
Secondly, the hair test is quick, efficient, and harmless. Tracking further than most others, the test should act as an incentive to stop using, a universally positive effect. Plus, the implementation isn’t occurring until fall: anyone using has time to “weed” off of the substance.
Secondly is confidentiality of the results: two counselors, the parents, and the user will be aware of the test results. Moreover, positivetesters need not worry about being treated differently in class or on the field, empowering the user to dedicate energy towards fixing his problem, without having to worry about discrimination.
An intangible, albeit significant, facet of the initiative lies within the intentions of the crusaders of the program. While some argue that the program is unnecessary, try to argue with Mr. Bradesca’s words as he talked about his personal run-ins with the consequences of drugs on his family or the love that Mr. Nolan expressed for all Saint Ignatius students.
The base goal behind this Wellness Initiative is to save lives. Even if it saves the life of one classmate, isn’t that worth it?
While the protesters might outweigh the advocates now, the tables will turn in the future. Twenty-two years from now, when those few users who quit junior year to pass tests are alive and well at their twenty-year reunion, they will be grateful. Maybe not next week or next month, but when it’s all said and done, there will be more than a few kids who will have this Wellness Initiative, along with Mr. Bradesca, to thank.
Kellen Dugan ‘15
An Irresponsible Waste
The Wellness initiative is costly, unnecessary, and promotes irresponsibility.
The cost of this program is about $60,000 a year. Granted, that may ultimately not be a decisive factor considering the tens of millions stored in the endowment fund, but what would this money support if it did not go to the Wellness Initiative? Perhaps it could fund new workout equipment, more Smart Boards, improved infrastructure for the school’s service programs, or even lowered tuition. My personal belief is that most students would much rather see $60,000 go towards any of those far more constructive options than the Wellness Initiative.
Is it really necessary to test the entire school randomly? I am not against a drug testing program for our high school, but I believe that it should only be administered with probable cause; not randomly. If our nation’s law enforcement must have probable cause to investigate someone, should our Wellness Initiative not be held to same standard?
In a place where responsibility is instilled in students, we must ask why the school is taking personal responsibility away from both students and parents. A student should be in charge of his own personal well-being, and there is little added incentive not to do drugs if he realizes there will be no disciplinary action taken in the drug test. Crucially, students will also know what drugs the test doesn’t detect.
This program absolves parents of one of their core responsibilities: making sure their son does not abuse substances. The school faces a slippery slope of increased responsibility for student well-being while parents are slowly disenfranchised. What will happen when a student graduates and loses the leniency of the Wellness Initiative, and must face the harsh scrutiny of the legal system?
The Wellness Initiative is not properly designed for St. Ignatius High School.
Bradford Horton ‘15
No Drugs on This Campus
Many students and alumni will be annoyed by the new drug testing policy being enacted next school year, but it is clearly a step forward for our school. The leaders of several of the best schools in the state have come to the conclusion that this new policy is ethically right, that they are responsible for the wellbeing of their students, and that this policy is the best course of action to protect those students. The Saint Ignatius High School Administration is improving the school’s health as a community, and safe guarding its collective reputation by imposing drug tests.
Both faith and reason indicate that using drugs is harmful and should be avoided. This is the result of their capacity to inflict physical harm or disrupt the user’s sense of true reality, a clear deviation from Catholic doctrine. Saint Ignatius has decided that it wants its students to be free from the deleterious effects of these substances, and has taken up the burden of making sure they are. Saint Ignatius students are to become good men, acting with their own free will, not as slaves beholden to substance.
Hand-in-hand with drug testing walks the school’s renewed reputation as a clean, neat place of learning, which colleges and future employers alike will look favorably upon. They will know that the student or employee they want to bring in will be dramatically less likely to have the undesirable habit of chemical dependency, which can only be advantageous to students in the future and now as they begin their lives as young adults.
Though controversy stems from the widely held opinion that this policy is an infringement of student rights, most students are unaffected by the issue. In a few years, more schools will likely adopt similar policies, lending further credence to the route that the school has taken. Saint Ignatius is leading the charge into a brighter, more ethically sound type of education, one that other schools would be wise to follow.
Anthony Ramirez ‘16
Misguided Hypocrisy
On April 29, the school administration revealed its new non-punitive drug testing “wellness program.” The program, which arose after concerns over the local heroin epidemic, involves test kits priced at about $40 per student that can identify usage of non-synthetic drugs in the body, excepting alcohol.
The fact that these tests cannot detect alcohol is a primary cause for concern with the program. There are certainly kids at the school who do use drugs, and the likelihood is that the majority of drug users abuse marijuana. Alcohol, however, is likely the most abused substance, given its legality and presence in many homes, and its abuse is therefore a more pressing issue at school than many of the drugs that can be detected by the list.
By only targeting drug users, it is possible that some people will abuse alcohol instead of drugs such as marijuana. Alcohol, while certainly less dangerous than hard drugs such as heroin, has been shown by studies to be more harmful to the developing brain than marijuana. The relative ease with which it can be obtained means that large quantities can be cheaply purchased, which increases the chance of large-scale abuse.
Another fundamental problem with the drug testing is that it only applies to students, not teachers or administrators. If the school wants the students to be “men for others,” it should treat them like men. Therefore, it should also drug test its employees, so that the students are not hypocritically isolated as the only people in the school who are prevented from abusing drugs.
An additional issue is cost. At $40 per test, and an average of 1.5 tests per student, the program would cost $90,000, which could be spent on preventative measures like drug education.
Overall, while well-intentioned, the drug testing initiative seeks to do more than the school can, while treating students like children.
Brendan O’Donnell ‘16
No Harm, No Punishment
In the weeks that followed Principal Bradesca’s incendiary announcement regarding next year’s compulsory drug testing, there has been no other topic that’s been discussed more – by students, faculty, and families all the same. Rumors were flying that key facts were still being concealed, and it seems that everyone feels that the basic civil liberty of privacy is at risk. After all, what right does the school have to know about its students’ personal affairs?
But if those affairs are obviously harmful, what right wouldn’t the school have?
There’s nothing furtive about Operation: Weed Out – a misnomer generated in turn by misinformed members of the student body. No punishments will be handed out, no one is having their body violated (unless you’re really, really self-conscious about your hair), and the people that see the results are solely confined to a very limited number of people. And, for the majority of the St. Ignatius student body, all this will be a matter of going through the motions – if you’re drug-free, you should have nothing to worry about.
For that percentage of the Ignatius student body who are active drug-users – to echo Principal Bradesca’s words – this program has been implemented to help you, not punish you. No one is branding you with your test results, shaming you into compliance. Nothing of the sort is going to happen. The program has been diluted of anything that would cause any student any discomfort. Even the method of the testing is innocuous: a strand or two of hair is the only cost. For the most part, this is an operation that will be happening behind the scenes. Sure, everyone has to get tested at some point, but it won’t be broadcasted publicly, and it won’t hinder anyone’s daily activities.
Everyone knows what side of the fence they’re on here. No one can hide their results from the test (and I mean that in the least ominous way possible). There will not be any surprises, and the results of the program can only be beneficial.
Owen Miklos ‘16
Legal Doesn’t Mean Moral
I recall this year going to the chapel to commemorate Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision to make abortions legal. This school intends to recognize this day as a travesty; a horribly misguided decision; a bad law. Ignatius would argue that legality doesn’t mean right, as noted in the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion.
Yes, this school has the legal justification to institute a mandatory drug test, but does that make their actions right? The intentions of the Wellness program are good, as prevention of drug use is important, but the school relies solely on legality to affirm their “Wellness Program”.
The form of testing this school would like to perform has proven ineffective. Marsha Rosenbaum, PhD, concluded in writing for the ACLU that, “the only formal study to claim a reduction in drug use was based on a snapshot of six schools and was suspended by the federal government for lack of sound methodology.”
Even a study performed by the Department of Education in 2007-08 concluded that testing offered, “no effect on illegal substance use, whether it was tested for or not.” Practically, the means this school will employ will, according to research, fail to meet their desired ends. As should be the case for any policy, failure of that basic test means the program should not be explored.
With only a legal justification, and no pragmatic foundation, this school would be ineffectively attacking the “problem” they see as so rampant. Instead of instituting something so drastic, perhaps a Wellness week dedicated to providing information about drug abuse could be effective, or hiring a counselor specializing in the dangers of substance abuse, all for the purpose of preventative education.
Or, most significantly, find a way to get parents more involved than just faxing over a failed drug test to them. If Ignatius wants to help its students, it must be willing to remove the veil of legality that obscures the few merits of their good-willed, perfunctory policy.
Zach Fechter ‘15
