Drug-free pedagogues in our public schools: It just makes sense

By Mark Malaszczyk

A Lincoln Orchard Mesa Elementary School first grade teacher is arrested after she is found in possession of methamphetamine. [1]

A Terry Parker teacher has been arrested after police found forty marijuana plants in his home. Authorities say Lamar Minton was in possession of numerous pot plants, pipes and other drug paraphernalia that were dispersed throughout his house. [2]

A Dayton school teacher arrested for possession of cocaine will get treatment. 48 year old Garry Cooper pleaded guilty to the charge. But as part of the plea deal, Cooper can complete drug treatment successfully and the case against him will be dismissed. Cooper was arrested after a deputy found him passed out in his car last year. [3]

In March 2002, the Education Intelligence Agency Report published a story entitled: "Cocaine Teacher Cuts Deal with District." EIA reported the case of Florida middle school teacher Robert K. Sites III, fired by the Escambia County School Board for showing up to work testing positive for cocaine — way positive — with up to 50 times the amount of cocaine necessary for a positive test in his bloodstream.

EIA reported: "The union successfully argued in arbitration that Sites was not informed of his right to representation and was not given "progressive discipline," taking into consideration his work evaluations and 12 years of service. The arbitrator ordered Sites into a rehabilitation program, and ordered the district to rehire him with full pay and benefits." A Circuit judge upheld the arbitrator's decision, but Sites agreed to resign and not teach again in Escambia County if the offense was erased from his record so he could be employed as a teacher elsewhere. [4]

Sadly, a boolean internet search on this topic uncovers many stories and situations that parallel the aforementioned citations. The depressing truth is that public school teachers should be subjected to mandatory random drug tests, along with members of the student body. While civil libertarians argue that this is an intrusion into teachers' personal lives and an irrelevant issue if use of an illicit substance is performed 'on their own time' and not in the course of the day while in contact with students, [5] any use of any unlawful material by a state-certified educator is a violation of the law and the profession's code of ethics and should be subject to criminal investigation.

An educator is not an independent contractor. He/She is an employee of a school district, publicly funded by taxpayer dollars. To become a teacher, one must complete the required undergraduate coursework towards certification, successfully complete a battery of examinations recognized at both the state and national level, and fulfill the specific requirements of the State Education Department for the state in which they intend to teach. Teachers are trained to be mandated reporters on issues of child abuse and substance dependency. Many states require fingerprinting of teacher candidates and school districts are supposed to complete a full background check of each newly hired instructor.

Contact with children is not something to be taken lightly. A pedagogue has a legal, ethical and moral responsibility to be of sound mind and body. The argument that a marijuana cigarette smoked on a Friday night has no impact on Monday morning instruction is the same type of rationalization that the students are using in their party habits. Becky Haskins, an Oregon teacher, is completely opposed to teacher drug testing. Her argument is that "the solution doesn't fit the problem. "The problem is that kids are doing drugs. If they need role models, maybe it's the parents who should be tested." [6] Perhaps parents should be tested, but that argument does not exonerate teachers.

Children have agents of socialization all around them; family, religion, economic forces, political leadership, media, and education all mold and shape them into the adults that they will become. Each one of us is a vital cog in the machinery that is designed to raise children that make the right choices. It is more than a coincidence that as the Hippies and Flower Children of the 1960's became the parents of the 1970's and 1980's, we began to see an erosion of morality coming out of the American household, with the lion's share of the burden to teach children 'right from wrong' placed on the public schools. But the problem is that the latest generation of educators has done more than a fair amount of partying in their own youth; teachers have had the infamous 'prom weekends' and 'frat experiences' that their students dream of. Many teachers simply refuse to grow up, believing that their life outside of school is something completely different from the image that they project in front of their classes five days a week. This type of rationalization and compartmentalization of values is highly hypocritical, and often transparent to the students that they teach.

Teaching is not something that you do; it is something that you are. It is more of a vocation than a job or career. My former Building Principal was as much a mentor to me as he was a supervisor; he counseled me to always remember that I wear my academic robes 'all the time, everywhere I go.' As an educator, you have the life of someone else's precious gift in the palm of your hands each day. Students look to you for knowledge, but they also look to you as a member of their reference group, a collection of personalities that they will make mental note of as they begin to try and figure out the type of person that they will evolve into. For a teacher to violate the trust that a community has given him/her in educating their children is egregious, indefensible, intemperate, and inexcusable.

In conclusion, teachers do not have to live the life of a cloistered monastic. But it is not too much to ask that they be chemical free and practice what they are ethically obligated to preach to their classes.

NOTES:







© Mark Malaszczyk