In a time where people don’t like to read the ‘terms and conditions’, or the contract that they are signing, they can be surprised when something written in there that they agreed to is acted upon. As drug use continues to plague the country, the case of Vernonia vs. Acton (1995) continues to be important. Vernonia School District in Oregon adopted a policy authorizing random urinalysis drug testing of all students who participate in the District’s athletic programs.

This is critical, due to the fact that studies have show athletes were not only among the drug users, but the leaders of the drug culture. Experts from the ACLU say that drug use leads to “deleterious effects on motivation, memory, judgement, reaction, coordination, and performance.” That means that this policy is keeping student athletes safe.

According to the Department of Education study, The Effectiveness of Mandatory Random Student Drug Testing, done in 2014, 14 percent of school districts in the country do random drug testing at least once per sports season in at least one of their high schools.

While some may claim that this violates the fourth amendment right, or the need for a search warrant to search someone or someone’s belongings for something, that is not true for school-related or school-sanctioned things. It is untrue, due to the fact that the school does not need to tolerate anything that is impacting the learning environment.

The school administration said drug use was impacting the learning environment in this school and “disciplinary actions had reached epidemic proportions,” and there was “an almost three-fold increase in classroom disruptions.” The school had this policy written into the contract that both parents and students entered into when they signed up for the sport, which means that they agree with the policy and that they are willing to comply with the policy.

Additionally, the school has what is called ‘en loco parentis’, meaning that they are substitute parents for the child from the time the child leaves food school, until the time that the child returns home. Therefore, since parents are under their Constitutional right to drug test their child, the school can as well.

Massachusetts allows drug screening of students. According to The Boston Globe article written in 2016, Schools Doing Drug Screening Laud Benefits for Students, a law passed in early 2016 allowing public schools to drug screen students in two grades. However, parents can opt their child(ren) out, due to the fact that it is not written into a contract. Haverhill School District talks to students in seventh and tenth grade, with the school nurse stating that if students learn early ways to avoid and benefits to avoid drugs, the chance of them developing a substance abuse problem decreases significantly.

School districts who randomly drug screen their students or randomly drug test their student-athletes are protecting them. In the case of student-athletes, they are not only helping to prevent an issue and teaching them the correct thing to do (as teachers are paid to do), they are simply enforcing a policy that was written into the contract that both parents and students signed when they signed up for a sport.