Ha. In my high school, you could be suspended for one day for keeping Advil or Tylenol in your locker. It was widely know among the girls (as taught to us by one compassionate social studies teacher freshman year) that while the school could search your locker, since they technically owned it, they had to have "probable cause" to search your backpack. So we just kept our pain pills in our backpacks.

On a similar note to school rules ridiculousness, a friend of mine was suspended for a week because he brought a bright green toy gun to school AS AN ASSIGNMENT. He was in a theater class, and the toy was brought in as part of an assignment on finding creative props to use for the school plays. The high school decided it violated the "no dangerous weapons" rule, and he was suspended. Fortunately, when his parents filed an appeal, the school board found the issue just as ridiculous, and it was removed from his record.

Nonthink is one thing. Ignorant, ill-informed nonthink is another.
Not every prescription medication is a "controlled substance." Erythro is a "legend drug," meaning that a prescription is required to obtain and possess it. Some legend drugs are also "scheduled," i.e, controlled substances such as Tylenol 3. The idiots at this school don't even know what the terms they are using to perpetrate this outrage mean.

The parents should sue these bastards within an inch of their lives.

There has been much discussion, and rightly so, about the need to improve teacher quality...there also needs to be much more discussion and ACTION about the need to improve the quality of school administrators, who all too often are a mindless and uncaring lot.

For another horrible example of mindless administrator behavior, see my post zero tolerance-zero judgment-zero compassion.

If this ever happens in a school that my children are in, I will oppose the idiocy by suspending my children for as long as the "perpetrator" is suspended.

Fortunately, our principal is reasonable. My 9 year old son brought a 6 inch dagger to school because he thought it would be helpful for a friend doing a project on medieval weapons. He did not take it out of his backpack but the next day my wife mentioned it to his teacher and the principal just to be safe. Nothing happened. I love our school.

See also Philip Queeg Public High School

Just wanted to point out that even though I think zero tolerance is a travesty, the girl's story also stinks. There is no such thing as "emergency" dose of antibiotics to prevent or stop an acne outbreak.
In the case of acne, antibiotics take weeks to work (if they work at all) and the doses have to be taken on a pretty rigorous schedule. So, the excuse for having it in the locker in case of "emergency" is basically bullshit.

Real quick, if you please, where did anyone say emergencey? Aside from you?

How can we expect adults to act like adults if they have been treated like morons their entire lives?

I don't feel like it is unreasonable to expect her age group to take doctor prescribed medicine when she is supposed to. By making her and every other student give it to a nurse we are babying an entire generation.

This sheds light on one either ignored or less well-known fact about the state of Public Education in this country. The vast majority of the problems are caused by moronic or just plain vicious administrators.

I have had three kids go through what was supposed to be a really great school district. Probably 95% of any of the problems they had were caused by administrators. Administrators who were cluless about state and Federal school law, administrators who were "kicked upstairs" because they couoldn't teach their way out of a wet paper bag, and administrators who just hated children (yes that is real). What principals, assistant superintendants, and the rest of the lot mostly do is cover their behinds.

And strangely enough, after leaving the school district behind, all the kids are doing extremely well.

Why are these school officials paid anything above minimum wage? If they are not allowed to think or make decisions there is no need to hire anyone with any kind of education or common sense. (Apparently they don't hire anyone with common sense anyway).

Now, let's be reasonable, people. Requiring school administrators to think implies requiring them to use judgment. Judgment requires personal responsibility, along with the risk of misjudgment. Misjudgment results in consequences and blame, which in these days of zero-tolerance, aren't good things. So who needs the pain of thought when we have rules to govern our every inaction?

Nonthink is the ideal to which we all should aspire.

"Real quick, if you please, where did anyone say emergencey? Aside from you?"

Read the article. She was supposedly worried about a flare up.

The medication was expired(not a current prescription)

She more than likely would have been taking this drug four times a day and I might add, HAD been taking it when she was in elementary school,according to the original article, probably at school in the nurses office, at lunch

I know this drug and the course of treatment for preventing/treating acne is one in the morning, one at lunch, one right after school and one before you go to bed.(four pills a day)

It sat on the locker shelf for eight months, and "most" of the pills were still in the bottle.

This school sent notice after notice home to parents about their prescription drug policy and even has the students take a "test" on the policy so they knew what it was.

This is a very poor example of the problems with a zero tolerance policy.

And of course, the reason that this policy exists is to keep Ritalin and Adderall out of the hands of the friends of kids who are taking it at school.

These are two of the most commonly abused prescription drugs. Millions of kids in middle school and high school are taking these amphetamines legally.

Just out of curiosity, how many of you people would think it was funny if little Johnny had a 100 pill bottle of Adderall sitting on his locker shelf and Stevie decided to swipe it and mix ten or fifteen of them into your kids lunch or beverage as a joke?

What if your kid was so allergic to antibiotics, that the had gone into Anaphylactic shock on a prior occasion? Same scenario only with stupid little Hayley's pills?

Same answer as Kiske I guess, Sue the school district for everything they have, for not having a clear policy that would prevent this sort of incident.

Isabel1130, I think that's where that pesky Thought and Judgment thing comes in. Not all prescription drugs are the same, and to react to them the same way sounds a little silly. Now, I could see some concern on the administration's part when the drugs were discovered; how do you really know what was in that bottle? But it seems like something that could have been cleared up eventually without suspensions or expulsions.

It seems to me that we are now tryo do everything to place kids into the criminal justis system, rather than keep them out of it. That is a shame.

"Isabel1130, I think that's where that pesky Thought and Judgment thing comes in. Not all prescription drugs are the same, and to react to them the same way sounds a little silly. Now, I could see some concern on the administration's part when the drugs were discovered; how do you really know what was in that bottle? But it seems like something that could have been cleared up eventually without suspensions or expulsions."

You would think so, but the way our justice system works, and by extension, public school rules, is, if you give the stupid little white girl a break on the antibiotics, after all the notice and warnings in the world I might add, and then you bust the little Hispanic boy for the Ritalin,you are back in court again for discrimination, because you did not apply the policy/or law equally across the board.

If I were the staff attorney for the school, I would tell them to do EXACTLY what they did in this case.

The moment you use "judgment" someone will see it as discrimination, and here comes a lawsuit that you will probably lose, as opposed to win, which is my bet as to what would happen if stupid little Hayley's equally stupid parents decide to take this to court.

By the way, I agree with you, not all prescription drugs are the same. In fact, antibiotics should probably not be a prescription drug at all other than then fact that their overuse will probably lead ultimately to more of us dying from their role in breeding super bacteria.

But the legal system, and to a lesser extent affirmative action, has caused this mess, not the school administrators.

I did read the article Isabell, right after reading your comment(I was wondering where the 'emergency' came from as it wasnt mentioned in Amys excerpt) I then posted my own, after reading it I double checked all five pages of the Washington Post article using the F3 feature scanning for the word "emergency"

It did not appear once.

So I will ask again

Real quick, if you please, where did anyone say emergencey? Aside from you?"

Isabel...all actions involve risk, and in our current environment most of them involve some form of legal risk. Consider, for example, Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner, now in its final test phases before commercial service. No matter how careful the testing, there is always a chance that there is some problem which will lead to passenger fatalities and to devastating liability for Boeing...but at some point, the program director, the Boeing CEO, and the FAA airworthiness inspector are going to say "it's ready--go!"

Because in their case, there is *offsetting risk** in indefinite delay of the product. But in the case of a school administrator, there seems to be little offsetting risk in establishing and rigidly following "zero tolerance" policies, no matter how much damage these may cause to individual students and to the spirit of the institution.

lujip, I guess you need to understand how antibiotics work to treat acne. Sorry I inferred a general level of knowledge that you don't have.
In answer to your question. I said "emergency" implying that this girl considered keeping a bottle of antibiotics in her locker to be justified as a prophylactic measure because they work like Clearasil where you spot a pimple and take a few, and poof a few days later, you don't have any acne.

They don't work like Clearasil, or aspirin and there is no justifiable medical reason to keep them on hand unless you are taking them as prescribed.

(Hint, this isn't like the Vicodin they give you at the dentist after a root canal which will last for years, and really come in handy if you wake up in the middle of the night with another abscessed molar)
This is not how antibiotics treat acne. You need a prescription, and you need to take them for months to have any effect, as they prevent or clear up acne, by suppressing the bacteria that cause it.

The only way for it to work at all, is to take it according to your prescription which means that you have to keep a pretty high level of it in your system, by taking three or four pills a day.
The kid had had a prescription when she was in elementary school. These pills apparently were left over from that time of active treatment.

There is no indication that she was under treatment or had a current prescription for the antibiotic.
If the pills were just sitting there, in the locker. it strongly implies that she thought it would be effective to just pop a few if she got a pimple and everything would be fine and dandy.

I repeat again, they are not an "emergency" type medication, like an asthma inhaler or an epi pen.

Pardon me for saying this, but I think you are being deliberately obtuse to try and justify your initial overreaction to my use of the word "emergency" to imply the thought process that a 13 year old would use. I meant "emergency" in the same way, ibuprofen is a fast acting "emergency" medication for treatment of a headache.

lujip, I guess you need to understand how antibiotics work to treat acne. Sorry I inferred a general level of knowledge that you don't have.
In answer to your question. I said "emergency" implying that this girl considered keeping a bottle of antibiotics in her locker to be justified as a prophylactic measure because they work like Clearasil where you spot a pimple and take a few, and poof a few days later, you don't have any acne.

They don't work like Clearasil, or aspirin and there is no justifiable medical reason to keep them on hand unless you are taking them as prescribed.

(Hint, this isn't like the pain pills they give you at the dentist after a root canal which will last for years, and really come in handy if you wake up in the middle of the night with another abscessed molar)
This is not how antibiotics treat acne. You need a prescription, and you need to take them for months to have any effect, as they prevent or clear up acne, by suppressing the bacteria that cause it.

The only way for it to work at all, is to take it according to your prescription which means that you have to keep a pretty high level of it in your system, by taking three or four pills a day.
The kid had had a prescription when she was in elementary school. These pills apparently were left over from that time of active treatment.

There is no indication that she was under treatment or had a current prescription for the antibiotic.
If the pills were just sitting there, in the locker. it strongly implies that she thought it would be effective to just pop a few if she got a pimple and everything would be fine and dandy.

I repeat again, they are not an "emergency" type medication, like an asthma inhaler or an epi pen.

Pardon me for saying this, but I think you are being deliberately obtuse to try and justify your initial overreaction to my use of the word "emergency" to imply the thought process that a 13 year old would use. I meant "emergency" in the same way, ibuprofen is a fast acting "emergency" medication for treatment of a headache.

lujip, I guess you need to understand how antibiotics work to treat acne. Sorry I inferred a general level of knowledge that you don't have.
In answer to your question. I said "emergency" implying that this girl considered keeping a bottle of antibiotics in her locker to be justified as a prophylactic measure because they work like Clearasil where you spot a pimple and take a few, and poof a few days later, you don't have any acne.

They don't work like Clearasil, or aspirin and there is no justifiable medical reason to keep them on hand unless you are taking them as prescribed.

(Hint, this isn't like the pain pills they give you at the dentist after a root canal which will last for years, and really come in handy if you wake up in the middle of the night with another abscessed molar)
This is not how antibiotics treat acne. You need a prescription, and you need to take them for months to have any effect, as they prevent or clear up acne, by suppressing the bacteria that cause it.

The only way for it to work at all, is to take it according to your prescription which means that you have to keep a pretty high level of it in your system, by taking three or four pills a day.
The kid had had a prescription when she was in elementary school. These pills apparently were left over from that time of active treatment.

There is no indication that she was under treatment or had a current prescription for the antibiotic.
If the pills were just sitting there, in the locker. it strongly implies that she thought it would be effective to just pop a few if she got a pimple and everything would be fine and dandy.

I repeat again, they are not an "emergency" type medication, like an asthma inhaler or an epi pen.

Pardon me for saying this, but I think you are being deliberately obtuse to try and justify your initial overreaction to my use of the word "emergency" to imply the thought process that a 13 year old would use. I meant "emergency" in the same way, ibuprofen is a fast acting "emergency" medication for treatment of a headache.

You would think so, but the way our justice system works, and by extension, public school rules, is, if you give the stupid little white girl a break on the antibiotics, after all the notice and warnings in the world I might add, and then you bust the little Hispanic boy for the Ritalin,you are back in court again for discrimination, because you did not apply the policy/or law equally across the board.

Um... that's what the whole problem IS - that applying rules "equally across the board" is stupid, because the situations you just outlined are NOT equal, therefore should NOT be treated exactly the same way, and doing so just brings down the level of reason exhibited by the school to thumbless monkey levels.

David, I do understand the risks of building a new airplane. however, much of the risk in the case of Boeing is also borne by the taxpayers, as these planes almost all have a military counterpart that is produced first and tested by the gov. Boeing is also allowed to mitigate their risk with insurance.
You are right, there is little risk in a zero tolerance for prescription drugs being kept in lockers. On the other hand, the unloaded guns in trunks and butter knife hysteria, is completely out of control.
Either through the school insurance policy or through paying for the defense of the school district in a lawsuit, the taxpayers are ALWAYS on the hook for any litigation.

Lujip, I tried also to respond to you but all three of my attempts went into Amy's spam folder and this is the first time it has happened to me.

That is insane!

Because she carried an antibiotic for acne, her whole academic record (forgive this choice of words) is blemished. This kind of thing can have far-reaching consequences, including her ability to get into the college of her choice.

I suppose simply calling the girl's mother and asking her about the medication, confirming that the child is supposed to have, then placing it in care of the school nurse, or whatever it is you're supposed to do with medications, would be just too unreasonable! No, we have to do our damnedest to ruin this girl's life because she was concerned about an acne flare up!

If I had kids of school age, I'd home-school them.

People don't use antibiotics to get high.

"Um... that's what the whole problem IS - that applying rules "equally across the board" is stupid, because the situations you just outlined are NOT equal, therefore should NOT be treated exactly the same way, and doing so just brings down the level of reason exhibited by the school to thumbless monkey levels."

I don't think you understand the practical applications of treating prescription drugs in lockers on a case by case basis.
Do you want each school to establish a drug lab to test every substance that resembles anything like a drug, and then start pulling out your Merrick drug manual and say, this is ok, this one is not, this one is a maybe, so you are suspended and you are not, but you have to wait because the test was inconclusive and we need to do it again? It seems so simple to apply "judgment" until you actually have to do it, fairly in real life.

Isabel..."You are right, there is little risk in a zero tolerance for prescription drugs being kept in lockers"...that was not precisely my point, which is that the administrators are minimizing the risk to **themselves** and perhaps to the finances of the school district at the expense of **risk and even certain harm to the students who are treated unfairly and to the spirit of the institution**.

Regarding the Boeing example, insurance mitigates risk but by no means eliminates it. A bad safety record on this airplane would result in large increases in premiums, and would be very bad for the careers of all the individuals involved.

I suspect that many people who choose careers as public school administrators are people who are more comfortable with a highly-rule-driven environment than in one with more autonomy and accountability.

"If I had kids of school age, I'd home-school them."

so would I, but not because of this case.

"If I had kids of school age, I'd home-school them."

so would I, but not because of this case.

"David, I do understand the risks of building a new airplane. however, much of the risk in the case of Boeing is also borne by the taxpayers, as these planes almost all have a military counterpart that is produced first and tested by the gov."

I know this is a tangent, but... Actually, these days, the way it works is that the civilian version is developed first, and then military variants follow. And yes, Boeing and Airbus bear the bulk of the costs of testing and certification for the airliners they develop. The last Boeing airliner to benefit from government-sponsored testing was the 707.

The reason they made these stupid zero tolerance rules was because punishments were not carried out equally across the board. The upper class white kids participated in "hazing" while the poor and minority kids were terrorizing through their "gangs". These rules were put into place to prevent travesties of justice and unfair treatment to minorities or the disenfranchised.

Of course even the zero tolerance rules may be broken because parents in power don't want their children punished. I know someone who was demoted after he refused to let a group of Anglo males off the hook who pulled a Hispanic girl into an empty classroom. But they were straight A students and members of student counsel! They smacked her upside the head, and harassed her verbally about a Facebook posting, but they were only "teasing" her. If a group of Hispanic Boys pulled an Anglo girl into a classroom and terrified her, the perception may have been a bit different.

Isabell, I know who antibiotics work.

I aslo read the article which said at the beginning of the school year the girls mother told her to take the pills, at which point she took them with her and left them in her locker only to be discovered months later, at no point in the article were emergency flare ups mentioned.

By the wat the "overreaction" was your use of the word emergency, not my asking where you got the idea that an emergency was being used as an excuse.

You know how bad these zero tolerance drug polices are getting? Many schools are now requiring that children with severe allergies surrender their emergency epi shots, and people with asthma to surrened their inhalers.

And this just in, school bans student from attendig school for "Internal Posesion"

http://boingboing.net/2011/02/08/colorado-springs-sch.html

Its seems that taking your meds before school is no longer an option as having your medication in your blood stream now counts as a form of posesion which violates the schools zero tolerance drug policy.

SO now it semms you cant eventake your medication with out being in violation of the drug rules.

Other zero tolerance follies

Peppermint flovered oil is now a drug

jonathanturley.org/2009/12/27/
peppermint-pusher-ten-year-old-
girl-suspended-from-school-for-
bringing-peppermint-oil-to-school/

Your fathr was murdered and thats why you were crying? Bullshit you're a pothead

www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news
/090910-school-suspends-boy-for-bloodshot-eyes

School spys on little boy in his bedroom, accuses him of using drugs. Er, Mike N Ikes, and the spying on children in their rooms was justified as we found drugs. That the drugs never existed is unimportant.

reason.com/blog/2010/02/20/lower-pervian-school-district

Isabels's arguments are very cogent and well thought out. There seem to be two distinct schools of thought when it comes to "zero tolerance"; Isabel's (in which we have to remove all judgement calls and decision-making from our authorities because it opens them up to liability), and the other side (where we expect our authorities to be able to make decisions and exhibit common sense, because that's the kind of responsibility that comes with a position of authority). Count me firmly in the latter camp.

The spokesman and the administrator who decided to inflict this punishment should be put up against a wall and shot.

The public school system is now run by over-credentialed imbeciles from the lower intellectual quintile of our society. They put zero-tolerance rules in place to keep the teachers and administrators from having to think.

Any politician who brings forth any more of this zero-tolerance shit should get the same wall treatment.

It's the only way they'll ever learn.

Further proof that public education just doesn't work... unless youre working to build a society of slaves.

Take your Soma er Ritalin slaves!

End public ed or at the very least promote vouchers.

My first reaction was this is silly - but Isabel, you've convinced me.

If drugs needs to be taken on a strict regimen, best for a parent to lodge them with the school nurse who can make sure that happens.

How can the teachers know what's in a particular bottle? Who knows whether some kid has emptied out an old prescription and filled it with something else?

The punishment is over the top, a stern talking-to would have done I would think - but I can see the point that the school has to take some action.

Take your Soma er Ritalin slaves!

I think you've missed the point Sio - isn't the issue about schools *restricting* drugs, even if prescribed? And if I remember correctly Amy takes Ritalin, you can describe her as a slave if you like but don't put my name anywhere near it - I like my testicles right where they are.

So Ltw you agree then that inhalers and epipens need to be left in the office?

Sigh, luj, no. But as Isabel has pointed out repeatedly, we're not talking about a medication that is required urgently.

Look, as far as I'm concerned the only responsibility the school has to 'protect' students is from violence. If they choose to take drugs given to them by a classmate who fucking cares.

People need to be responsible for their own actions.

And by the way how sick is it really that school will stip search a girl for possesion of Advil, but wont stop 3 guys form beating up a fourth as any teacher pulling an attacker off his victim could be charged with assulting a minor?

It seems so simple to apply "judgment" until you actually have to do it, fairly in real life.

Aww... somebody might have to put their thinking cap on for 5 seconds. I'm sure it's probably way too tight, because they haven't worn it since before college, and their heads get so huge with the power they have, that it probably hurts to put it on.

If no one has accused someone of using drugs that are controlled substances, then the administrators should keep their big noses to themselves in the first place. If they happen to see a prescription drug bottle, then look and see if it's a controlled substance. If it's not, then give it back and be done with it. If it is, THEN they get to make a judgment call.

How can the teachers know what's in a particular bottle? Who knows whether some kid has emptied out an old prescription and filled it with something else?

Well, for starters, the bottle is (IIRC) required to contain a description of the pills it contains. I don't know for certain whether that is a Federal or State requirement, but since I live in a state that is pretty loose with its rules, I'd guess it was a Federal requirement.

Fairfax schools spokesman Paul Regnier said the school system interprets state law as requiring Hayley to be suspended and recommended for expulsion because she possessed a controlled substance, which includes prescription medication.

If that's true (and the interpretation is accurate), then the problem is not "school drug rules" but "stupid state laws".

More or less the same thing, but the real problem there is the Legislature, not the school.

(Sure, the school could look the other way, but then the stupid law is still on the books until Someone needs to use it to Get Someone Else.

Stupid laws should be enforced, for two reasons -

1) Because laws should be enforced, not "enforced when we feel like it" and
2) Because that way there'll actually be pressure to FIX stupid laws.

There will be a problem until "being seen to be doing something" stops being a motivation for lawmakers.)