The Northern Valley Demarest High School administration is subjecting hoards of their students to unwarranted drug screenings following the installation of “vape detection devices” in all restrooms within the building in an attempt to quell teen nicotine usage. 

These tests have been proven time and time again to be mistakenly set off and ring false alarms, like being set off with by an aerosol deodorant spray or cologne, which leads to any student who entered that bathroom that day liable to be interrogated by the administration and forced to complete a mandatory drug screening, a screening which does not even provide a result for nicotine or related substances. If a student tests positive for Marijuana, it will go on their permanent student record and be detrimental to their future endeavors. 

The students of Northern Valley Demarest have expressed anxiety and fear over entering the restrooms due to the possibility of the detectors being set off, subjecting all the students in the vicinity to be called down to the office and picked up by a parent for a drug test, leading to a disrupting learning environment following a gross invasion of privacy.

Apart from the atrocious utilization of taxpayer money and the school budget spending a whopping 20 dollars per test per student, having never even spent a dime on a covid test for a student or faculty member, the administration provides no basis for the claim of their entire narrative to prioritize the safety and mental health of students, especially in a time of covid related stress, online school, college applications, and the recent prevalence of school shootings around the country. 

Better handling of this problem, clearly not considered by the administration, would be to only test students who have been found with a device on them, not innocent bystanders whose only crime is being at the wrong place at the wrong time, merely trying to use the bathroom and who have enough to worry about by just showing up to school. 

With the constant threat of impromptu drug testing and permanent record threats looming over the heads of the students at Northern Valley Demarest in a time of already prevalent stress, the students are taken aback that the administration who claims to provide a “safe” learning environment for students would implement a system which directly jeopardizes a students mental health to the point where a student is in fear of using the restroom during school hours. We students already live in fear, let us have our freedom within school walls.