Recently, Fishers High School has increased their routine drug and alcohol testing for student drivers. With it, rumors and misinformation have also spread regarding the testing and some students are not happy about it. 

Random drug testing for student drivers is not new and has been a part of the student contract to get a parking permit. According to the Student Handbook, the policy is in place to protect both the student driver and everyone else on the road.  

“The random drug screens are there to make sure that every student has a safe environment to drive and park their vehicles,” Dean Schooley said. “It’s an accountability measure to make sure that students are being safe and that other students are in a safe environment.” 

If a student refuses to submit to a drug test within two hours of the random selection, it counts as an offense, and they will be subject to consequences aligning with the number of offenses they’ve previously accumulated. 

The reason the deans are performing more random drug tests is not from an increase in students using drugs, or an increase in deans catching people with drugs in their system, according to Schooley. 

“This year, there’s been a push from the central office to make sure that we are drug screening our drivers in a random session, so that is what we’ve been doing,” said Schooley. “We’re just following the expectations that have been set forth in the handbook.” 

Some students are hesitant about the testing, skeptical of the purpose and effectiveness. 

“I think it’s a waste of resources and money,” junior Julianna Johnson said. “I think they can use that money towards other things.” 

Other students, like junior Homam Raig, feel the randomness of the drug screens infringe on students’ rights.  

“I feel like if [the deans] have hard evidence, that’s reasonable,” Raig said. “But I feel like picking out random people for a drug test? That’s not very reasonable.” 

Random drug screening, as detailed in the HSE district student handbook, functions as a lottery system, with random student drivers selected each month. Drug screenings due to probable cause are enacted after a student displays unusual or out of character behavior that make the deans suspect drugs or alcohol are in their system. 

With student drivers talking about it increasingly, many students hear many different things about the deans performing random drug tests, which can lead to misinformation, panic or confusion.  

“I’ve heard people being like ‘yeah my friend of a friend got tested,’ so I thought it was only a rumor,” Johnson said. “I didn’t think it was actually happening.”