A school district is fed up with ‘epidemic’ vaping. Now it will randomly test students for

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So one small Nebraska school district is trying an aggressive new approach: forcing students in grades seven through 12 to submit to random nicotine testing if they want to take part in extracurricular activities such as speech competitions and the National Honor Society.

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Though teenagers and privacy rights advocates might find it extreme, the new policy is legal thanks to a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld an Oklahoma school district’s policy of randomly drug testing students who participate in “competitive” extracurricular activities such as cheerleading and choir. In 1997, the Supreme Court had determined that testing high school athletes for illegal drugs was constitutional.

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Only a handful of students have failed the test each year, though school officials expect those numbers to go up once nicotine is added. First-time offenders are required to complete mandatory educational seminars and are suspended from school activities for 10 days. The consequences escalate from there: After their third offense, students are disqualified from participating in extracurricular activities for a whole year.

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The Nebraska district is also looking into installing WiFi-enabled vape detectors, a new form of technology adopted by schools in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arizona and Illinois in recent months. The sensors, which are typically placed in bathrooms and resemble smoke detectors, are designed to detect vapor from e-cigarettes by measuring changes in humidity and air content.

Because the devices can cost nearly $1,000 a piece, some school districts are reportedly installing dummies and counting on students not to figure out which are real and which are fake. By comparison, randomly testing students for nicotine is only going to cost Fairbury Public Schools an additional $900 a year, KOLN reported.

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But some argued that it should be up to parents, not the school district, to police teenagers’ behavior. “If we keep giving our rights away, soon we will have none left,” wrote one dissenter. “I for one, would like to make my own decisions. I don’t need the government to make them for me.”

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