Prescription medication is cause for expulsion
Anthony Walker, a Newport High School senior, was expelled under the school’s zero tolerance drug policy. He was carrying medicine that had been prescribed following extraction of his wisdom teeth.
Walker advised the board that he had begun to take his medication on the morning in question but, needing to eat something before taking it, ran out of time as the school bus approached.
He said he attempted to eat breakfast at school and take his medication but was unable to eat the hard cereal served in the school’s cafeteria. Walker decided to wait until lunch to take his medication hoping something softer would be served.
Walker did not turn the medication in to the school nurse, a requirement under the school’s anti-drug policy. However, the severity of his punishment is nothing short of shocking.
[High School Principal Danny Ebbs] suspended Walker for 10 days, per the policy, and recommended to Superintendent Dr. Ron Wilson an expulsion for Walker for the remainder of the school year. Wilson agreed and submitted the matter to the school board for a special meeting Monday night.
…
Anthony Walker was expelled for the remainder of the 2004-05 school year following a unanimous vote of the board members.
There is no question that he made a mistake and broke the rules, but is the failure to surrender legally prescribed medication an offense that merits expulsion? This punishment does more than simply remove him from the school - it also prevents him from graduating with his class.
(Tip credit to Tori in Texas)
This is a sin……
The paranoia of allowing high school students to self medicate themselves is ridiculous. Yes, there is some risk involved, but that risk was there when I was attending high school 25 years ago and we didn’t have to go to the nurse before taking tylenol or advil or even prescription meds. Schools are too darn worried about being sued if something should happen, so they lose all common sense and expel a kid. I am totally fed up with this non-sense. A ten day suspension for a first offense and a meeting with the nurse or the student’s physycian to explain why such polices are put into place would have been a much more appropriate form discipline. Parents we have to somehow take back our Public schools. Out students are losing all of their rights under the Constitution when they walk through the doors of the school. Anthony, go to your local community college and see if you can take some courses that will earn you college credits and credits towards your diploma so you will at least have that instead of a GED.
It redefines authority. It signals that school authority is more powerful than any individual doctor, psychologist, lawyer or parent. When political authority rules, social authority has no control at all.
If the majority of people believe this social structure is ok, child authority will continue to grow in political power. Teachers are the fastest rising number in employment.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/03/pf/hotjobs/index.htm
Hello…Deb, same song, different verse. Afraid of being sued is the driving factor in most school district’s decision to implement ZT. As stated before, ZT is nothing more than setting rules, policy and processes in place so that the most stupid in our school administration ranks don’t have to think. When you think about it, it is really an admission of incompetence, much in the same way affimative action dictates that minorities aren’t capable to make it in a heads up competitive arena so lets drop the requirements based on race…but in this case, it’s lets drop the level of decision making because the teachers/administrators are incompetent and incapable of determining what is right and wrong and we don’t want to be sued if they’re wrong…talk about dumbing down America!
Hold it…more facts about this situation are on the way, and I’d bet soon.
Hold it…more facts about this situation are on the way, and I’d bet soon.
The Newport HS Bible Club is one of the school’s largest clubs and meets Tuesdays at noon. If the Board would attend and pray about this with the students, I don’t think they’d land at the same ZT conclusion for this young man.
In regard to the article printed today on this website:
The local newspaper failed to mention that the medication that was prescribed for A Newport student was not all of the medications that he had in his possession. These medications were not in a legal prescription container. Also, the student was advised to take the medication to a principal, and he did not. Whenever the principal took the medication from him, he had less pills than he had been seen with earlier by a teacher. Newport school also has a drug re-hab program which enables a continuing educational process which is very inexpensive. The student refused to participate in this program, thus his expulsion was decided by him. Amazing: all facts are never presented.
Danny, thank you for commenting. It’s true that we very seldom have all of the applicable information and must make inferences from what we do get. The items you have mentioned make the picture a bit different but also give us new questions to be answered.
What other medications were involved? Aspirin? Muscle relaxers? Unknown?
If the teacher saw a student with unknown prescription medication that wasn’t even in a prescription container, why didn’t he/she confiscate the medication?
You mention that the drug rehab program is very inexpensive. Is the student expected to pay for this?
I do have to correct your assertion that he himself decided upon the expulsion. A Hobson’s choice is no choice at all, that’s the nature of the beast. The school expelled him and there’s no washing hands of that action.
Newport is a small town in the Ozarks with a population under 8000, where 66% of the people have graduated from high school. This is an unusually low number for the state, so perhaps, at a cultural level there is a casual respect for city rules. It’s important to send the message that following the rules is a good thing; and coming to school acting like a dope is a bad thing even if it’s because your not well.
http://www.town-info.us/Newport-Arkansas.asp
As a parent I don’t think that’s the message we’re sending though. Your state is focused on discipline. The rising concern is whether this country can afford the devastation rising levels of severe punishment is creating. The corporal punishment rate for this district is high even by your state standards, 738 incidents.
http://adedata.k12.ar.us:8080/FY03_04/District/
http://adedata.k12.ar.us:8080/FY03_04/State/
Insubordinate and disorderly conduct are published like other states track reading proficiency levels (which I couldn’t find). Fortunately assaults on staff are actually higher in elementary school than high school. Are the programs you mention, associated with Wackenhut Corrections, Grimes/McPherson maximum security unit in Newport. Certainly the Arkansas Dept. Of Correction School District references them among their resources
http://adcsd.k12.ar.us/contacts.htm
It makes me wonder if the dilemma of insubordinate male teens rocking the state statistics are benefiting from the methods and goals of public education. As a parent I hope my school administrators believe education and not control are the path to civil order.
This is Arkansas right? The home of Hillary and Bill. Didn’t Hillary and Bill champion cops in schools? Hillary especially loves control — truancy charges for parents, as well as kids, where they will both have to work together on their community service projects (”It Takes A Village”) — uniforms for public school kids (orange jumpsuits for the guys and maybe pink polyester waitress dresses for the girls (along with a hairnet perhaps/sarcasm) — just google Marc Tucker letter to Hillary Clinton — regarding School-to-Work programs for public school kids.
Funny, when I’m in Washington, DC, (several times a year) I pass Sidwell Friends (the school Hill and Bill sent Chelsea to) and I don’t see those kids in uniforms and I bet they don’t have a goon squad patrolling their hallowed halls either.
I’ve read where Arkansas is almost dead last in the nation regarding school statistics and Hillary and Bill didn’t help the state any with their involvement in “improving” the schools. I’ve also read where homeschooling is growing faster than public school enrollment.
‘Ignore the man behind the curtain!”
I don’t know if this is what politicians intended, or if it’s the predictable faiure of corporate power. GEO group, formerly know as Wackenhut, is a multi-national corporation that profits from prison and has a close relationship with the US department of education. As you might expect, there is a great deal of infighting in the funding for college and prison.
http://www.mlive.com/news/statewide/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1108033823176561.xml
Booth Newspapers reported last May that although the youth prison in Baldwin was built as a maximum-security facility, only one-third of the 480-bed prison was filled with levels 4 and 5 inmates, the highest security level. Two-thirds were at the levels 1 and 2, the lowest-risk inmates in the system.
Arkansas gets it’s own website for child development.
http://maxpages.com/darkevilworld/Kids_Cops_and_Confessions_1
GEO’s investment factsheet.
http://www.hoovers.com/the-geo-group,-inc./–ID__42155–/free-co-factsheet.xhtml
I continue to get all kinds of advise out there that says we are stupid and mean. The article did not present near enough evidence which warranted expulsion. HIS medicine: he had more than was perscribed for him. It had no container and was in his pocket. He was told to take it to a nurse or principal and he refused. Also, we DO NOT have a zero tolerance policy here. He was given an opportunity to stay in school after the suspension but refused rehab treatment as made available by school policy. One other thing that this mean principal would have done had he had only HIS medicine without a container and did not turn it in: I would have suspended him for three days. Hopefully this will serve as correction for all the readers who seem to have all the answers even without all the facts.
I continue to get all kinds of advise out there that says we are stupid and mean. The article did not present near enough evidence which warranted expulsion. HIS medicine: he had more than was perscribed for him. It had no container and was in his pocket. He was told to take it to a nurse or principal and he refused. Also, we DO NOT have a zero tolerance policy here. He was given an opportunity to stay in school after the suspension but refused rehab treatment as made available by school policy. One other thing that this mean principal would have done had he had only HIS medicine without a container and did not turn it in: I would have suspended him for three days. Hopefully this will serve as correction for all the readers who seem to have all the answers even without all the facts.
Danny, the more information that comes out, the less things make sense.
The pills were in his pocket but a teacher saw he had a dozen pills? How?
What were the other medications that led to the expulsion?
How much is the rehab program, and who pays for it?
Is sentencing to a rehab program standard fare for possession of prescription drugs?
I keep coming back to the teacher. From what you’ve said it seems that the teacher saw a student with a pocketful of various drugs not in a container and did nothing except send him to see the nurse. How did the medication possession get to your attention? Did anybody except that teacher see the pocket full of various drugs?
The reason that the story casts such a bad light on the school and yourself is because it just doesn’t add up well. Help us to do the math so we can understand what went on here.
Danny, what’s your position in the school system? [personal attack removed - please refrain from blatant insults]
Markm: Mr. Ebbs identifies himself as the principal at the end of his first post, and the article Jim posted lists him as such too.
Since we don’t know what the other drugs were, it’s hard to know whether rehab was a viable alternate. If they were OTC meds, whether or not recommended by the doctor for post-op, or meds prescribed to Mr. Walker by his doctor, then rehab would be pointless. He would have to nothing to be rehabilitated from. I would refuse to attend a rehab facility/system/course if someone at work decided that my having pseudoephedrine or some prescribed (to me) percocet in my desk was wrong, and I certainly would refuse to have my child attend such if her only offense was having some OTC ibuprofen in her purse. If, on the other hand, the drugs in question are “recreational” and/or otherwise illegal without prescription, than rehab would be reasonable, and the young man’s refusal to attend might indeed be a case of him choosing the expulsion.
My question as a parent would be, was he abusing the drugs he had with him, and was he giving them to any other students? If the answer to both questions is no, then, if none of the drugs he had with him fell into the illegal or illegal without prescription (and they weren’t prescribed for him) categories, anything past a short suspension seems unduly harsh.