Bullying in Today's Schools

I am still very shocked by the number of suicides recently due to cyberbullying. I had no clue that the issue was as bad as it is and unfortunately it took the death of all these kids for people to catch on. The Phoebe Prince story is still a big deal even though it happened months ago. I was reading in a magazine a couple weeks ago about how the school is now forever tainted by what happened. All other schools in their area just refer to them as the bully school. It's going to take a while for them to get over what happened. Even our school is still thought of as the party school where students died on homecoming. However, bullying here at DHS isn't as bad as it is in other places. This could be because not as many people see it or because the people being bullied don't speak up. I think another reason we do not have a huge issue with bullying is because our school is not very diverse. We are almost all white middle class citizens in a very Jewish area. There isn't much that someone can make fun of someone else for that wouldn't also apply to themselves. I don't want to say that no one is bullied here because I'm sure there are some, but it is not as prevalent as in other places. I think that there are also a lot of students who are confident enough in their own skin that can brush off something a bully would say or laugh about it with a friend. For the most part we are a very tight knit group of kids since we all grew up in a small town where we all know each other. I think that if we want bullying to be eliminated completely then it is the responsibility of the students. We need to educate everyone about bullying and how it affects people. We could do something similar to Challenge Day or something like what Highland Park does with the Anti-Defamation League, where they bring together all the freshmen to discuss bullying and share personal stories as a way to stop it before it even starts. If we make it known that bullying is not acceptable and even try to make it look like it isn't cool then I think kids will stop since they won't get the glory that bullies may have gotten in the 1950s.

Drug Testing in Schools

I am strongly against drug testing in schools. I understand that once you walk into a school there are very few rights that apply to you. After twelve years of the public school system this is very obvious. I get that sometimes bags need to be searched in order to keep schools safe. I have been subject to that twice so far in my four years of high school with two different bomb threats. However, drug testing is a step too far. School officials do not need to search a students body to keep schools safe. This is the ultimate invasion of privacy. What students do on their own free time should be of no concern to the school. By instating drug testing for student athletes, schools are just trying to go out of their way to catch someone in the act. It is also unfair that just the athletes are tested. This leaves students in clubs and other extracurriculars free to get high and go about their day. Student athletes are held to such a high standard today and that causes plenty of problems in schools. School officials seem to still be in the 1950s mindset where the starting quarterback and head cheerleaders rule the school. However, from a students point of view this is not true. Plenty of people go about their day and hang out with their own friends and don't even pay any attention to what the athletes do. They are no longer the biggest influence in schools anymore and don't need to be held to such a high standard because most people just don't care. If the school wanted to do drug testing right they would include the entire student body. However, most people would find this search to be unreasonable and, based on the ruling in New Jersey v. T.L.O., if the search is unreasonable then it is also unconstitutional. This whole idea of reasonable leaves too much in the eyes of the paranoid school officials. We have seen plenty of unreasonable decisions made by our own school officials to feel warm and fuzzy about the fact that they will be deciding when it is and isn't reasonable to search our bodies for drug use. Things like free pizza or plastic cups at lunch set off our school administration and cause them to make unreasonable decisions. How are they going to be able to convince us that what they say about drug testing is reasonable. In my opinion, the students should be able to decide what is reasonable when it comes to their own body, not school administrators who are more worried about high test schools so they get more federal funding instead of the students themselves.

Keeping Religion Out of School

In 1995 President Bill Clinton said, "Nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones, or requires all religious expression to be left behind at the schoolhouse door." This is a very important policy because it allows religious students to take time out of their day, if they need to, to pray or do anything else to honor their religion. However, the separation of church and state prevents public schools from preaching religion and making their students practice religion. The Portland Adventist Academy tried to push the limits of separation of church and state. Since they were Seventh Day Adventists they could not do work on their sabbath which went from sundown Friday to sundown on Saturday. Because of this, their athletic teams could not participate in games or tournaments during the sabbath. The state basketball tournament was generally played on Saturday afternoon which would keep the Portland Adventist Academy from participating if they were to reach the State Finals. The school board tried to petition to change the time of the State Finals.