New Rockhurst Drug Testing Could Affect East

Senior Nick Pirotte was at his job at Ace Hardware when he heard the news. When his manager told him about the new drug testing Rockhurst High School would implement for the 2013-2014 school year, Pirotte’s first reaction was to laugh, thinking of some Rockhurst guys he knew who would be none too pleased. Then, he tweeted a link to an article on the drug testing, joking, “…and smeast’s attendance skyrockets.”

Pirotte was just joking. But his tweet brought up a real area of interest for members of both the communities of East and Rockhurst: how would the new drug testing effect East?

The proposed drug testing, announced on Jan. 3, is the first drug testing program of its scale and nature in Kansas City according to Rockhurst Principal Greg Harkness. At the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year, the school will test all students using hair follicles and will test students randomly from then on in the interest of student health.

Disciplinary measures will not be taken after a first positive drug test, but after a student tests positive a second time they will be “referred to the Dean of Students for potential disciplinary measures,” as Harkness wrote in an email to Rockhurst parents. These disciplinary measures will vary on a student-by-student basis and could be as severe as dismissal from the school.

East Principal Karl Krawitz expects a number of ex-Hawklets to come to East after failing their second drug test. One reason that students might come to East after being asked to leave Rockhurst is because the school has a more lenient drug policy than their old school. Although Dr. Krawitz commends Rockhurst’s new policy for its strong stance against drug use, he says he can’t implement a similar program at East.

“I’d love to see us do drug testing,” Dr. Krawitz said. “I don’t know if we’re not legally able to do so.”

University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor Daniel Weddle also doubts the legality of mandatory drug testing in public schools.

“It’s not clear at this point whether the [Supreme Court] would uphold a challenge to that practice,” Weddle said. “I think it may stretch the bounds of the Fourth Amendment too far to do random drug testing of the entire population of a public school.”

Another reason Dr. Krawitz thinks dismissed students from Rockhurst will come to East is because of the clean slate they’d get there. He says that as a private school Rockhurst can bypass the formal legal process of expulsion that public schools must go through in order to dismiss a student for a violation such as drug or alcohol use. Without that formal legal expulsion process, a student asked to leave a private school can enroll in a nearby public school with what is essentially a clean slate, because the private school won’t notify the new school of the students reasons for leaving.

“I’ve, in the past, tried to call schools to get an understanding of why a student is coming here,” Dr. Krawitz said. “[But] the private schools don’t have to go through this formal long-term expulsion hearing. The school didn’t expel them. They left on their own. The response I always get [from private schools] is ‘The decision to leave the school was made by the family.’”

This presents a problem for Dr. Krawitz and the administration. Without a formal record of a student’s transgression, the school has no way of knowing which students it should exercise its lawful right to deny enrollment to.

Despite Dr. Krawitz’s concerns, it stands to be seen how many students will actually get to the point of dismissal from Rockhurst. Rockhurst junior Connor Ehman thinks that his school doesn’t have that big of a problem with that in the first place, and agrees with others that the new policy won’t affect Rockhurst’s enrollment significantly. He thinks that when the time comes, most students will stop using drugs before they get asked to leave.

“I think there will be a lot of positives but I don’t think there will be many second round positives,” Ehman said. “I don’t think we’ll see a lot of expulsions.”

Another possibility is that students from Rockhurst will voluntarily transfer out in reaction to the drug testing. While Harkness says that most of the feedback he’s received since the announcement of the drug testing has been positive, Ehman says there are many within the Rockhurst community who are alarmed by the new policy.

“Obviously the people that have a problem are upset because they don’t want to stop [doing drugs],” Ehman said. “There are people that don’t have a problem so they’re upset that they can’t do what they have always been doing and been managing just fine. And then there’s the people that don’t do anything and are upset about student privacy. It feels like for the most part that everyone pretty much has a problem with it.”

Ehman says he has heard of a number of students who have expressed interest in leaving Rockhurst next year. While he admits that a decline in enrollment is a possibility, Harkness is unsure of how the new testing will affect his school’s enrollment.

“At this point I am not sure, of course I hope none,” Harkness stated in an email interview. “When we were discussing the program with other schools like ours that have moved to drug testing program, the results were mixed. Some saw enrollment decline and others saw increases.”

The decision to switch schools will ultimately rest in the hands of parents. One Rockhurst parent, John Miller, says that although the majority of students, including his son, sophomore Sam Miller, are frustrated with the new policy, he personally can see both sides of the issue.

“On one hand I commend them for wanting to go the other way and keep [drugs] out of their school,” Miller said. “But on the other hand, it is somewhat intrusive, and maybe that’s a parent’s responsibility and not the school’s.”

Miller says his son will definitely stay at Rockhurst. As for other Rockhurst parents, he says he can’t imagine many parents taking their sons away from the school because of the new testing. But according to Ehman, some parents have already begun making plans for their sons to attend other schools in the fall due to the new policy.

While the likelihood of a mass exodus of transfers from Rockhurst is being debated at this point, those who do leave will need to go somewhere else for school. Ehman believes that the Missouri kids will likely attend other area private schools, but Kansas kids are just as likely to enroll at a public school as a private school. He says he can see some of them landing at East next year.

“I think for a lot of them going to East would be practically the same thing as going to Rockhurst,” Ehman said.

In the end, Harkness doesn’t think many will leave Rockhurst, either by choice or not.

“I think our students like being here and value what a Jesuit education offers them,” he said. “I do not expect them to give up all they have worked so hard to accomplish because they want to do drugs or abuse alcohol.”