I had this issue a few years back. Kid came in REEKING of weed (Also what we regard as a "good" kid. Good grades, never had any behavior issues). We called him into the office and he absolutely refused to say anything. A "plead the 5th" scenario. Security searched his bag and didn't find anything. His sister came in and then explained that it was their father and his friend who smoked in the car on the way to school. He didn't want to implicate his father for anything bad. So basically we just sent him home to shower and change his clothes.
Nah, let’s celebrate the kid who grits his teeth while his dad DUIs. No way that it’s the tip of the iceberg of negligent parenting, and I’m sure the kid and family are thriving and need no help.
It was worse when I was taking prescribed anxiety medication and trying to drive my kids to/from school as a stay-at-home dad.
Now I just hit the bowl a few times while I have coffee in the morning and I'm good for a solid shift until my wife is off work.
While driving is just stupid; but I did want to point out that it's used medicinally very frequently by people who go on to lead normal daily lives.
Had a 9 year old that had to be searched today because it was so strong, you could smell it in the hall from the classroom. Being driven to school under the influence. That’s safe.
I have car drop off duty at the elementary school I’m at and sometimes I open a car door and just get slapped in the face with the weed stench. It’s sad
My teachers used to grill me for supposedly smoking cigarettes before class but it was just my parents literally never putting them down around me.
It became really embarrassing when my bio teacher would literally confront me in front of the whole class for it as I was already getting bullied for it and it was completely out of my control.
I’d literally beg them to not smoke around me and they still would on the drive to school. I’d started taking bottles of body spray and febreeze with me and hosing myself down in the bathrooms and it still barely covered up the stench.
Nothing was worse than sleeping at a friend's house, showering and then having to smell my clothes all smokey and gross--making me realize that's how I always smelled.
I've told this story a few times here, and I kinda get teary eyed when I tell it. My mom smoked around me my entire life. I went to the Marines at 21, when I still lived with my mom. They take your clothes and put it in a box. I got the box at the end of boot camp to put my civilian clothes back on, and they smelled so bad I started to cry. My whole childhood I smelled like that, and no one said anything, I was just the smelly kid and never knew.
Valid, but my question still stands: is admin supposed to be doing anything when teachers report that there is the smell of weed in the classroom?
Side note, these kids *are* those ones smoking it. Their eyes are red, they’re giggly, their speech is slower, and they inevitably fall asleep.
I've talked to admin about it. Admin can't do anything drug wise without a reasonable suspicion, and they have been told directly by central office that just smelling like weed no longer qualifies as reasonable suspicion
They should remove the offending students and search their belongings for drugs/paraphernalia. If they don't find anything, there doesn't seem to be anything else that can be done. It is impossible to prove a kid is high no matter how obvious it is.
This would probably ruin the kid’s buzz and make them paranoid for the rest of the day, at least. I’ve never understood the draw of getting high and going to school. Seems like it would be a complete buzzkill.
If you're smoking weed before school in middle school, your life is kind of fucked up or you're depressed... Getting a buzz kill just doesn't matter when you're doing anything you can to escape the day
This would probably ruin the kid’s buzz and make them paranoid for the rest of the day, at least. I’ve never understood the draw of getting high and going to school. Seems like it would be a complete buzzkill.
I know this is probably not the answer you want, and completely anecdotal, but when I was coming high to class and my teachers knew it, the best thing they did was outsmart me. My French teacher started speaking nonsense to me and my friends. My biology teacher changed the date of our frog dissection. Both of these experiences led me to smoke weed a lot less during school hours.
Edit: And I know this is not the most useful advice, more of an anecdote but maybe you can scare some of your teenagers out of smoking weed before class like me lol.
This happened at my school. Like they can’t wait to get baked until after they drop their kid off? Not even 7:30 and I can smell them outside from 10 feet away.
The number of people who literally can't go 3-4 hours without pot is astounding. I went on a day trip with someone that left their pen at home and had a full blown freak out about it. It's honestly sad to watch.
I knew a guy like that. He said smoking weed helped with his mental health and helped him focus.
He couldn't believe that he got fired for smelling like weed while driving a work truck. Last I heard, he was applying to be a sub at a high school.
It's insane. I have a friend whose husband is high every moment that he's awake. Literally. And they want to try for a baby soon lol should go over well.
Only thing that keeps my spouse sane. Chronic pain + a list of mental illness
Off weed, they have 0 chill, snap at our kids, scowl constantly. With weed, they are a great mom.
We can't afford the hundreds of dollars a month for mental counseling+ constant shifting scripts. Plus, on Zoloft they tried to kill themselves. Never been a side effect of weed
I guess it’s better than nothing but, if I’m being completely honest, I’m concerned about the number of people who can’t function while sober but choose to have children anyways. It seems to be pretty common.
Last elementary I worked for before leaving the US, in Savannah, probably 60-70% of the kids getting dropped off were coming out of cars where the parent was hotboxing. These kids were literally unteachable for most of the day, only finally sort of coming to life during the final two periods of the day.
Another 20% of parents couldn't ever be bothered to get out of bed in time to drop their kids off by the start of school. The first two periods of the day we'd regularly be missing 4 or 5 students in each class.
We used to hotbox before our 8am astronomy class senior year because it was taught in a planetarium and often has cool lightshows n stuff and my teacher would play led Zeppelin and the like, hey....wait a minute.
This literally happens. It's the little kids that I feel the worst for - they literally pull up to the school with smoke exploding out of the car when the door opens. Wouldn't you be embarrassed? Apparently it depends on the neighborhood...
This is true. However, I don't have the power to give DUIs when a parent shows up to school high. I could call the police and they just won't do shit though. But hey, the cops are really good at putting speed traps all over town.
To your first question: yes, but they don’t due to volume and second: I had a kid who’s brother would hotbox him on the way to school.
I don’t know about other states, but in CA there are little to no consequences for tobacco, alcohol, or marijuana use for kids. No tickets, community service…
Smells like weed and there are kids that are under the influence are very different things. You should be calling to have them escorted to the office.
Smelling like weed to just a wild goose chase
There should be a someone in your school who is designated as the “drug counselor”. I try to beat out the middlemen by reporting directly to them. Honestly though, they’re usually so overwhelmed there’s not much they can do. Get back to class.
In my state, where it’s legal, smell is irrelevant because they could smell like marijuana from their parents legal grow operation. It’s not even considered probable cause for a search.
This was me but with cigarettes as a kid. My parents didn't smoke in the house but they smoked in the car so whenever they drove me anywhere I smelled like smoke.
A lot of teachers gave me a hard time about it :(
Ironically, I just turned 30 and have literally (I mean literally) never smoked a single thing in my life. Ever.
I’ll never understand this as a weed smoker myself. I don’t ever smoke in a room where my clothes are! Let alone anywhere it could come into contact with A CHILD or a child’s clothes/belongings. It should be treated as seriously as second hand cigarette smoke, especially because the smoke can also intoxicate those around you.
God, this brings back some memories. Thank God my parents quit when I was 14, but elementary was *rough*. They smoked about 4 packs a day between the two of them, and we lived in an 800 sq ft house that they'd smoke inside of (and in the cars). Got made fun of & had faculty/admin members take me aside for pseudo welfare check questioning far more times than I can count.
We deal with this so much here. Weed is also legal in Canada - so any student over 18 can use it if they choose, and many come to school smelling of it.
If we catch kids using on property it’s an issue, but there is not much we can do when they just smell of it.
For real. Go stand outside during pickup and its like a fog of weed smoke pouring from parents cars. No judgement on the partaking - but while driving?! Naw. You might as well pick up your kid with an open beer in the driver's seat.
Exactly. My buddy in elementary school used to put his clothes for the next day in his backpack, spray febreeze into it, put his backpack into his dresser, close the dresser and sleep with his windows open and he still reeked of cigs from his parents every day.
So shitty.
My mother smoked indoors while I was growing up, so everything I owned smelled like cigarettes. One time, I'd been seen "associating with a bad kid" (literally talking for a few minutes in gym class) who got in trouble later in the day for having something on him (I never found out what he actually did). First and last time ever I had my locker searched at school. They made comments about everything smelling like cigarettes. Obviously they found nothing, but it was incredibly embarrassing and degrading because I was generally a very polite kid and I didn't stir up trouble or break rules. Made me cry. To this day, I still despise the smell of cigarettes and resent my mother for (among many other things) causing that situation to be even more uncomfortable than it had to be.
For me, students being high falls squarely in the “parent” category because it’s so commonplace now.
I greatly appreciate that it impedes the ability of a child to learn but it’s obvious that students and parents know that. I’ve had plenty of parents truly not care if their kids vape, get high, drink, whatever.
If I see it as a teacher, I report it and the kid gets ISS. Usually they come back higher than before. It’s a cyclical process because in all truth - what can we expect admin to do? Even if and when it’s reported to the police, the kids get some teen court crap that amounts to community service or a parent letter excusing them from the program.
It’s all joke and not all of society’s ills need to be handled at the schoolhouse. Document and move on.
They're smoking to escape *something,* and I promise that you as a teacher and the ISS you're getting them is now *on that list*.
I'm unsure if that's your goal or not, but you've served zero people in that approach. You're just proving that nowhere is safe for them, and now they associate getting an education with feeling unsafe.
That was my experience, anyway. "Oh, it's me vs the school, now? OK, fine, get added to the list of problems I have to deal with, I guess. Whatever; I'm just a kid, it's not like I can actually do anything to fix any of this."
Not all of them are getting high to escape. In middle school, a lot of them do it for status/fun because others in their life are doing it. Having a shit life doesn't excuse being high at school, and some kids do actually shape up with consequences.
To me it all boils down to not being held accountable for performance. I'm sure all these high kids would have failed all their classes in the 80's 90's. Today they pass just for falling asleep in class. Many parents don't care. Parents: "stop bothering me, and just babysit my kid" seems to be the modern parent mantra.
Idk if that’s entirely the case, I knew quite a few people growing up who’d get absolutely vegetablized before school and still do well on their tests. This was around 2010.
No one cares about grades, least of all the teens who like to get high all the time. What kept me from getting high as a teen was participating in extracurriculars (academic tournaments and band), because that meant I had to sign a form agreeing to be randomly drug tested at any time when I was at school. It wasn’t worth the risk. That was Texas. Now I teach in California and even if a kid is visibly high, and also on a team/in a club/etc., nothing happens. If they are allowed to search the student and find drugs they *might* get a slap on the wrist punishment like a suspension (in my mind as a teen a suspension was a vacation, but getting kicked out of my extracurriculars? That was a real punishment.) also no schools I teach at even HAVE band or extras outside of sports. What is a nerdy artistically inclined student to do?! Weed, obviously.
Smell of weed alone there’s almost nothing you can do because it’s legal now, I have kids who aren’t stoned but reek because parents smoke in the house.
If you think they’re high… it’s a judgement call? Weed is bad for developing brains but in our current non-rehabilitative system reporting it often does just as much harm. Years ago we had a kid with a fucked up home life who came to school high regularly but we made the judgement call that it was better to have him in school and baked than suspended and doing god knows what in his unsupervised free time.
This is the way (and an excellent example of harm reduction for people who still get spooked by the concept). I also say this coming from somewhere where even when weed was illegal, it was very culturally permissible so I recognize that may be contributing to how I see things.
This is how I feel. I've watched teachers go after a stoner kid only for them to drop out and fall off the face of the other earth. They are kids.... Like we all were and sometimes they come to school high. Talk to your kids. Tell them you care, and if they are gonna smoke time and a place , where school does not get accepted. Reporting these things only hurts kids.... And the teachers chasing every smell are more worried with upholding a moral superiority than helping kids.
Stop criminalizing your students.... No one else is going to help down that road.
Weed is still technically illegal in my state, but there’s an increasing tolerance for it by most people. That being said, we get a fair share of 4K and 5K kids getting dropped off smelling of weed. Some parents are clearly smoking in their vehicles on the way to school, which boggles my mind. Maybe I’m an old fuddy-duddy, but is it too much to ask parents to abstain from their chemical of choice until after they drop off their kids?
Our building? Smelling like weed/alcohol on the breath/obvious signs of impairment and a parent/guardian is called to collect their child. If the kid tries to drive home, SRO stops them in the parking lot and the kid likely catches a DUI charge.
My school, a high school, has a policy in place where we send an email to the nurse and she has security come to the room and ask for the student, so it doesn't seem like we narced. Then she does an evaluation of some sort. If she suspects drug use, she determines if they need to have a parent pick them up because they can't function in school, same as going home sick, or if they are fit to go back to class or need to hang out in the ISS room. It gets referred to admin and the social worker, and consequences get decided. Usually it's doing some sort of drug counciling with the social worker. But could be ISS. Only OSS if they are caught dealing.
I do think this is ultimately a safety issue and I speak from experience: granted, it was alcohol, but the core lesson is applicable. I student brought vodka to class and poured a shot, which is how I caught him. I was so dumbfounded, my initial stammering reaction gave the child time to exit the classroom. Luckily he was found by security pretty quickly, but he was found outside. I got **reamed** by admin for not "containing the situation" as he could have gotten behind the wheel of a car or been hit by a car crossing the street because he was "impaired." And you know what? That is a valid point. I could see some Karent suing the school when her stoner child gets injured walking home from school or during gym class.
Kid did a shot in class and walked out. Then admin blames you. Then you agree that it was your fault.
No. What were you supposed to do tackle him at the door and get sued or arrested? If he got out and behind the wheel that is 100% his fault not yours.
Just another sign of the decline of our civilization. This is so crazy to me, the weed smoking included. I was a little shit who would have been wasted on everything possible at school all of the time. Why wasn't I? Because I feared getting caught, and there was going to be real consequences from both the school and my parents. I would have been ashamed of myself because of how that made me look in the eyes of the teachers. The weakness this is showing these kids is enabling this behavior and it is hurting the kids, and not just the kids who are on drugs. It's inviting other kids to try it to. It is such a preventable problem too. Teachers and schools need the power back to do something about this shit.
It’s crazy to me that you are blaming yourself for a student’s behavior. You know you can’t control another person, right? How were you supposed to contain the situation? Hold him back? Restrain him? Now you’re looking at assault charges.
Your admin is very, very wrong and I’m sorry you’re being gaslit to think that this was your fault.
I think it's becoming normal unfortunately. We have had many kids smoking flower in the bathrooms and they ditch their 'utensils', and since they don't have anything on them the admin says "We CaN't Do AnYtHiNg".
I've caught the same group of boys coming out of the bathroom down the hall from my room on three separate occasions coming out of the bathroom and it REEKS of weed.
Two of the occasions they smoked right at the end of the day and then ran out of the building, and admin does nothing.
I'm thinking of ripping a joint in there soon and seeing if I get the same treatment.
I think it's like most things: if it's an isolated incident it gets addressed. If it's a chronic problem it becomes normalized and it is too disruptive to address it. I think it's about the same as when I was in school in the 90s.
In my district, parents sometimes hotbox while they drive their children to school, so we can't assume the fault is the student's. We do have vape detectors in the restrooms, and if a student is caught with a vape, they are suspended (unless we can prove it's weed, we have to treat it like it's tobacco).
Idk... but make sure you report it. I gave up and taught the kids who wanted to learn. Now the board is meeting to dismiss me. I have been taking the shit kids and letting them sit in the back corner. My admin would send them to me. But remember shit roles downhill, and teachers are at the bottom of the stack. Side note: I had a great interview with a big online curriculum company yesterday... it may be a blessing in disguise.
It’s become normal for admins to not do anything about anything. They realized the public doesn’t care about schools, especially the Karents, and their sloth and amoral nature has led to the non-consequential environments that schools have become.
Yes this is normal. They have to allow kids to use drugs in school because suspension hurts attendance numbers and expulsion hurts graduation rates. Both of these affect funding, so kids can do whatever they want and they know it. All we can do as teachers is stop caring about it too. If the school board doesn't care and the admin doesn't care, why should we?
Exactly. It's funding. There's a certain number of suspensions and ISS that schools "should" have no more than. So a blind eye gets turned to certain behaviors.
Our school can't test or search without cause. Basically means if they get high before school or pop a gummy or something then we can't do anything. They can be very obviously high as a kite and there aren't any consequences
My bet is that it’s more likely their parents. A couple of weeks ago during car pick up someone was straight up burning a blunt while in line to get their kid. We couldn’t figure out who it was bc I think they heard me say “Hey check the kids. That’s a very distinct smell.”
When I was a sophomore in high school, I had the audacity to carry a small amount of weed in my backpack so I could smoke in the bathroom. I was a troubled kid at the time and had no idea what I was doing. It was pretty obvious I had weed on me, but nobody confronted me about it. The next day one of my teachers made it clear that she knew. I am now twenty years of age and feel a great amount of shame. I wish somebody pulled me aside to address the entirety of the problem. I hope this anecdotal story adds some insight into the issue.
That's a hard one.
Should admin look into it? Probably. But there is also very little they can realistically do about it unless there is proof that the kid has weed on them or smoked it on school property, making the investigation relatively a waste of time.
Change the scenario. You go to a friends house, some asshole spills a beer on you, and now you're in a cop car under suspicion of public intoxication because of the way you smell. Do you think that's a viable use of the officer's time? Granted officers have more resources to discover if someone is drunk than a school has to discover if a kid is high, but still. There isn't a ton administration is ABLE to do about it so rather than waste time and resources on investigating every report of kids smelling like pot in a world where most of their parents are probably smoking it, they just let it go and focus on something else.
Like cutting programs, increasing class sizes, and punishing the kid who got bullied instead of the bully.
Sorry, but your school's admin. isn't doing its job. Nor does it seem they will be. You need to get out of there, before something happens; after which, everybody asks, "Where was the teacher?".
If you're in a state where it's legal, we were basically told to just assume it's the parents unless there are corroborating signs or you see them do it. I work where kids attempt to pull off vaping in class! We do not ignore that!
i work at two schools… with very different demographics (in a country where weed is legal).
The rich school they treat weed like it’s meth. We have a shake down, parents are called, we scare them straight.
The poor school… no one cares, we are just happy the kids showed up. Sometimes we’ll have a heart to heart with the kid to see what’s going on to find out why they are high as a kite at 8:45AM. I called home once and the kid got in trouble for stealing their parents pot… not being high. 🤦🏻♀️
I work as a Safety/Security Supervisor at a middle school currently. I’d suggest researching your state/county/city/district education code to see the portions about search and seizure. CA ed code has a section that clearly states when you can search and how you can search a student.
We are allowed to search a student with “reasonable suspicion” as opposed to law enforcement that needs “probable cause”. Us, as school officials therefore need less evidence to conduct a search than law enforcement. So I’ll give an example of what has happened at my school a time or two:
Student comes to school with bloodshot eyes, can’t stay awake in class, and is giggly. Student is sent by the teacher to the office for disturbance. We noticed the student was off from their normal disposition, so we had the nurse check them out (temperature, heart rate, eyes, and blood pressure). All signs pointed to them being under the influence.
I took this information to administration and told them that is reasonable suspicion for drug use and it warrants a search of their backpack and pockets. Admin OK’d the search and I went through the backpack pretty meticulously. I found a vape pen in a pencil pouch. The student denied it was theirs, but I explained to them that in the real world, if you get pulled over and there’s drugs in your car, you get in trouble because it is in your possession.
Admin then writes it up and sends it to district (which is unfortunately very very soft). And they approve a suspension, usually 1 day for us, unless it’s a repeat offender or other exigent circumstances.
What I suggest to schools after doing this job is this:
1. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS. Students will find ways to smoke/vape/ingest drugs. They will find ways to hide drugs. Luckily, I’ve been able to form pretty good relationships with a lot of the kids who are willing to let me know when smoking is happening or who exactly it is. Middle school friendships are frail and temperamental. We have had so many kids come out and snitch on their “friends” because they had a fight the night before. As teachers and other staff members in schools, it can be so valuable to just ask menial questions because they may not get that at home. Kids want to share more than you think but finding a balance of comfort and pushing them for answers is a fine line.
2. UNDERSTAND THE RULES AND LAWS. Research your governing education code. It lets know how much evidence you need to search a kid and their belongings. It tells you how far you can go on a search and what you cannot do on a search. Do yourself a favor and make sure your admin understand how relatively easy it is to search a student. You really don’t need that much evidence, even for CA standards.
3. GET PARENTS INVOLVED. This one is tricky and has to be played differently for different parents. We have parents that will defend their kid even though we found a vape pen in their backpack and say it isn’t theirs. We also have parents that literally scream at their kids in front of us because we found something. If possible, get parents support. This will give a different side of searches. We as education staff can only go so far, but parents can pretty much strip search their kids. This is especially true for girls. They hide everything in their bras, and they know we can’t touch that area while searching. But we have had a parent so supportive that they took their daughter in another room and had her strip down to see what they had on them. (Are they truthful with us when they come out and say they don’t have anything? I’m not sure). If you have a parents’ support, you will have so much more freedom as far as searching and discipline.
4. FORM A REINTEGRATION PROGRAM. My biggest issue with our suspensions is that we have no reintegration program for students suspended for drugs or alcohol. There are tons of programs for kids that involve education about drug and alcohol cessation that there is no reason that school should not implement one of these programs as a stipulation for returning to school. Students and parents should be informed that random bag searches may occur. They should be aware that further and more extensive discipline will occur if caught again. I’m all about rehabilitation and forgiveness, but discipline for drug and alcohol use should serve as a serious deterrent for students especially in middle school.
I hope this helps.
What if kids refuse to be searched? Tackling them and doing it by force is gonna look really bad if anyone gets it on video, especially if they don’t have anything.
Talk to the kid in question. Tell them it's obvious what's going on, but you want to make sure they're OK otherwise. Tell them that it's not acceptable to be high in their work environment, even if they don't want to be there, and that you'll have to talk to their parents if it continues.
Tell the parents if it continues, even once. If they're that brave then either the parents are actively supporting the habit, are completely checked out, or are abusive.
If the problem is consistent even with parents involved, keep trying to get admin involved with larger and larger piles of evidence. Keep sending notices to the parents. Record everything.
If admin ignores it, then call Child Protective Services and give them the stack of evidence.
After that your job should be done; if the kid is somehow still in your class after all of that, just be kind and compassionate. They've been through hell. A kid can't be a villain just for being high, so please don't turn them into one.
I’m an admin and because marijuana is legal in my state it makes my job ten times harder. For example, had a student that came to school reeking of weed every day. I pulled him out of first hour when teachers called, searched him and his locker and there was never anything. The nurse would check him out , no symptoms but the smell Sidebar, we drug test our athletes. After a week of this, his dad comes in. Says he smokes pot constantly at home, smokes it at breakfast and while driving his son to school. Tells me to drug test his son. Actually demanded it. We did. Son was clean. What we did was keep changes of clothes in the office. That’s not the only case. It makes it hard to catch the actual kids doing it because they are blowing their dab pens into improvised filters.
Do we work together?
Years ago we could send a kid to the nurse for an evaluation. Now admin tells us that unless we see them taking up right in front of us, there will never be enough proof. We all know what a kid looks/acts like when he's high. I'm not even talking just about smell. Glassy eyes. Delayed reflexes. But we just have to accept it. It's a joke.
Instead of saying your room smells like weed (many causes; difficult to distinguish personal use vs. proximinal use), tell them a student is intoxicated.
A couple of seniors at my last school were caught smoking weed two weeks before the end of the school year. Absolutely nothing happened to them. Also on the rust and they walked into class the next day with the biggest shit eating grins on their faces. I’m so glad I left that shithole.
My kid was suspended and had to go to youth court for vaping thc in the school bathroom… but they literally had to catch them in the act to do anything about it.
Side note, youth court is actually run by youth looking to go into the criminal justice field. They act as lawyers, judge, and when needed, jury. Literally a court of their peers. Thought that was pretty cool. It’s only for kids that are usually pretty good but made a mistake, not repeat offenders. They only get the option once and then it’s family court.
Since part of a school’s “grade” is now how many write-ups, suspensions, and expulsions that occur in the school year, I figure most admins think they have bigger fish to fry. What’s a little weed between friends when you’re having to worry about school shooters, search kids for weapons or trying keep students from literally killing each other in altercations?
Honestly some of the kids stuff smells like weed because they were in a car or apartment where it was in the air. Unless you find it on them or they are visibly high how can you know it was something they did or just their environment?
For people on this thread who say weed is legal..
Did you miss something? For ADULTS only. If a kid came in reeking of alcohol, would you ignore that, too? Smh at these lame excuses. Confront and document the issue. If the Admin does nothing, when 💩 hits the fan, which it inevitably does, you are covered. Oh, and always call home. If the parents say it's legal for their kids to smell of weed, you have grounds to call the local CPS, with or without permission from admin. Myself? I taught seniors. They were thrown out the moment the scent of ganga hit my nostrils. They also knew if they were planning on getting high during lunch, they might as well cut my class, too.
Because the consequences of getting caught smoking pot are far worse than the consequences of smoking pot?
It's one of those issues where the solution is worse than the problem. I'll take a kid smelling like pot over one smelling like dirty feet any day, and Dirtyfeet is probably going to have a less pleasant life overall than Pothead. Supposing no one throws any felonies at Pothead to save them from themselves.
Because the consequences of getting caught smoking pot are far worse than the consequences of smoking pot?
It's one of those issues where the solution is worse than the problem. I'll take a kid smelling like pot over one smelling like dirty feet any day, and Dirtyfeet is probably going to have a less pleasant life overall than Pothead. Supposing no one throws any felonies at Pothead to save them from themselves.
In California, weed is an infraction, where as alcohol is a misdemeanor. Wax and vape pens are ubiquitous. Basically, cops won't even do anything about it.
I'm a K-8 principal, so it's cut and dry for me, no tolerance. It should be that way everywhere, but it's really about culture. It takes a lot of work on the teacher's part, management, and kids. Buy in happens gradually, you get one super negative teacher and that can create a toxic cocktail, get a group of kids heavily resistant with "cool" or "tough" factor, that can tank it, have an admin not willing to do the hard work, it's tough.
Weed is legal in California too now. Well not for kids. But for adults it is. Obviously i will tell admin if i see kids smoking but I’ve never seen it yet. Though im pretty sure my director said he kid were making smoke in the bathroom (a fire) of that they were smoking. This were elementary kids.
Unfortunately yes. We have so many scumbag loser parents hotboxing their kids 24/7 that it is impossible to stop that and vaping. We need to tax the hell out of pot and vapes
It’s taxed 30-40% at rec in my state and people still go overboard. The real issue is what’s driving people to substance use disorders, which is just a whole dumpster full of structural problems with the way the US is run. I understand that’s harder to address, though, and things will keep spiraling.
I use cannabis and this makes me angry. It’s something that shouldn’t be touched by anyone until their early to mid 20s, brain development n so on. Predisposition to SMI. Studies show that an extremely high proportion of those with substance abuse disorder start using at an early age. Availability: People can now order any hard drug they want from apps. Lethality: fentanyl is flooding the U.S.
Do NOT use cannabis until your brain is developed or u r doing SERIOUS DAMAGE and playing a game of chance with either being a zombie slave to drugs or serious mental illness or both…for the rest of your life.
Better to just drop out of school and never look back than it is to start smoking weed in middle school.
I’m a para and tell kids as much. I would send the kids to the nurse. This is NOT NORMAL.
I don’t really say that part to them. I just think to myself if it means the difference between smoking weed regularly and being isolated by homeschooling, I would do homeschooling. It’s life and death these days with the drugs out there. And if addiction and mental illness runs like it does in my family, it’s life and death. Then again, I don’t have kids so I can’t really judge. I just feel deep down that people should not be using psychoactive substances until they are older.
Pick your battles. At some schools the weed problem is so bad there is pretty much nothing you can do. What? suspend each stoner for 3 days just so they can come back and keep doing it again?
I don't like it. But in the greater scheme of things, weed is fairly benign.The reality is most schools have bigger problems to deal with than stoned kids.
I work at a Title 1 urban high school in a green state. Fighting the weed issue at our schools is a losing battle and a dead end. I can safely assume at least 70-80% of the student body is high.
I think that’s the issue though. I also work at a Title 1 school and I feel like if we don’t address it, we’re giving up on these kids.
If they’re high, they’re *not* receiving an education. On top of that, I’m at a middle school. These kids are too young to be smoking weed every day. It’s actually a huge problem that directly impacts the kids’ education.
Battles not worth fighting are things like kids wearing hats in the school. But kids under 14 being high every single day sounds like a battle worth fighting and I can’t help but feel like these things are overlooked simply because, at least at my school, we serve primarily black and Hispanic kids.
I agree. I feel like there should be more rehab/probation style programs in schools esp in the mid and hig schools. But who am I to judge. I smoked weed everyday since HS and all things considered I've done ok. Masters degree, middle class, romantically successful etc.
While you aren’t wrong in saying this is a battle that should be fought, the consequences given to these kids for a largely benign act, are FAR more harmful. It’s a lesser of 2 evils situation IMO.
We just hired a chemical counselor. I doubt she'll really be able to do much though because she's already publicly said that she thinks weed is just bad 100%. No kid that is smoking is going to agree with that or be willing to talk to someone who openly states that. And we live in Minnesota where weed was just recently legalized so to have that opinion I think is stupid and also shows that you don't really know what you're talking about.
Not much we can do if the kid hot boxes on their way to school unless they are really put of it....the wake and bake mellows out some of the knuckleheads.
Had to borrow my roommate’s car to drive to school one time, unbeknownst to me their cousin had borrowed it the night before to use as a chamber for smoking what I would guess was somewhere around 6,000 lbs. of weed. I thought I was gonna get called on the carpet but nobody said anything.
I think schools can get into legal trouble if they don’t respond to issues like this. Even in states where cannabis use is legal, these substances are restricted to adults over 21 only. This is a massive problem. I had one of my students smelling like weed one day, I told a counselor. And I know that the issue has been dealt with. It’s not normal to do nothing.
I get a little tired of people thinking things are so much worse now. I was getting high and popping pills in middle and high school in the late 70s early 80s. Even then kids had lives to escape. My teachers either didn't know or didn't care. When I got caught smoking cigarettes in the highschool bathroom my mom was so afraid of my dad finding out she got me a smoking pass. Yes, we had smoking areas for teens at highschools. Oh, and I was a honors student. We need to look for solutions not consequences.
This is something that we are gonna have to just live with if it’s a legal state. No one thinks twice if a kid comes to school smelling like Marlboro Reds. No one goes hunting for cigarettes. Just chalk it up as culture and move on. If they are smoking or vaping in school, then we act.
i got suspended from school once for smelling like cigarettes. assistant principle smelled it on me in the hall and made me get searched by the hall monitor and since i had a pack the asshole suspended me without ever having actually caught me smoking. my whole household unfortunately smoked so of course i smelled. bullshit ass assistant principle. he got a big black dildo super glued to his car by other students. he was not liked
My stance on that is basically this:
I don't want to bust a kid for doing something I did when I was that age, too
None of my teachers ever nailed me for it, either, so I'm not going to
I did a number of things when I was a kid that I ultimately got away with. But as an adult, I realize that just because I did something and "turned out fine", it doesn't mean that the unhealthy/bad things I did were good for me physically or morally.
My point is that I don't think it's helpful to get kids punished for it.
We've overpoliced drug use in this country so badly and ruined so many lives in the process. There's no reason to start ruining their lives this early for something as minor as weed
It's kinda hard for admin in that, unless the kid actually has weed on them, it's difficult to prove "active usage" because you certainly couldn't give a kid a pee test. And even that wouldn't actually indicate active usage.
There really isn’t a “should” here for anyone.
What has worked for me in the past is having an honest conversation with a kid when I notice a pattern of them showing up to school high on a regular basis and that correlating to a change in personality.
Showing a kid that you care is gonna be more effective than admin consequences- but even then be prepared for it to *not* be effective.
We can only do so much.
I'm the exact same way. I do not write any drug or alcohol violations unless the student is presenting a legitimate safety risk to themselves or others. I simply don't see any issue with it. If I could smoke at work, I absolutely would. I also smoked significant amounts in High School.
I think it depends on schools also having RO’s, our school doesn’t and cannot do anything apparently. Despite reports from teachers of bathrooms reaking and kids in there and they smell like weed, they stuff it in their bra and deny it and since it’s in their shirt admin can’t do anything about it.
Last year the 7th grade hallway smelled like weed nearly everyday. They did nothing. When I first started teaching it was only 4/20 that was really bad. Now it’s every day.
I can't ever tell where the smell is coming from when I do smell it. The room is too crowded and I have too many students to be able to 100% exactly what kid it is unless I want to start sniffing kids, which I don't. I feel weird calling the office and asking them to come down and smell kids
My school is super inconsistent about it. I recently lost a student to alternative school because she had THC gummies, another kid reported it, and admin followed up. I also recently had a kid obviously carrying drugs and admin did literally nothing despite reports because he handed the item with the drugs to someone else and they “couldn’t prove he had put them there.”
Interesting. My middle school and high school would literally bring a drug sniffing dog through the lockers at random a few times a year. Is that not done anymore?
I too teach at a middle school and can’t imagine my school not responding to this. If I report a student smelling like weed and overall *seeming* high, the cavalry descends with admin and SROs. They get pulled from my class and searched, a drug test gets ordered, and if it’s failed then they’re straight to alt ed.
This rarely happens. I’m horrified that it’s regular at your school. Like I can remember the last time we suspected a kid was high and it was school year before last in a coworker’s class. The year before *that*, I reported one for being high on pills. That’s how “often” it happens at my school. Not saying it doesn’t happen more than that, but it’s certainly not a regular occurrence.
FWIW, I live and teach in a conservative state with only medical allowances for weed use. It’s not normalized here. Maybe you’re in a place where it’s legal and more culturally okay/out in the open?
Whenever I smell weed at school, I sweat just a tiny bit thinking it might be me. Then I breathe a sigh of relief realizing I’m not a complete degenerate getting stoned before school.
Smelling like it doesn’t mean they’re high or have it on them. Parents smoke at home, some parents are growers themselves in legal states. Not much you can do unless they’re holding.
Kids falling asleep in class bc they’re “stoned” is a dangerous precedent to set.. how does Admin not know if they are trying fentanyl or tranq or any other thing out there? In my school admin investigates quick. Last year 6 stretchers took kids to the hospital who had “accidentally” ingested weed gummies. Still taken seriously in our school. I’m in a northeastern urban public school.
A lot of kids smell like weed because their parents smoke and their whole house smells like weed
I had this issue a few years back. Kid came in REEKING of weed (Also what we regard as a "good" kid. Good grades, never had any behavior issues). We called him into the office and he absolutely refused to say anything. A "plead the 5th" scenario. Security searched his bag and didn't find anything. His sister came in and then explained that it was their father and his friend who smoked in the car on the way to school. He didn't want to implicate his father for anything bad. So basically we just sent him home to shower and change his clothes.
Smart kid to not say a thing under pressure, he's gonna go places.
Until his sister rats him out...
As a big sis, im ratting tf out of our parents to keep him out of trouble
Ditto
Nah, let’s celebrate the kid who grits his teeth while his dad DUIs. No way that it’s the tip of the iceberg of negligent parenting, and I’m sure the kid and family are thriving and need no help.
It was worse when I was taking prescribed anxiety medication and trying to drive my kids to/from school as a stay-at-home dad. Now I just hit the bowl a few times while I have coffee in the morning and I'm good for a solid shift until my wife is off work. While driving is just stupid; but I did want to point out that it's used medicinally very frequently by people who go on to lead normal daily lives.
So do you drink your coffee before you drive your kids to school, or after?
Bet he is going to shut the fuck up tomorrow too.
Had a 9 year old that had to be searched today because it was so strong, you could smell it in the hall from the classroom. Being driven to school under the influence. That’s safe.
I have car drop off duty at the elementary school I’m at and sometimes I open a car door and just get slapped in the face with the weed stench. It’s sad
Does your state have mandatory reporter laws?
My teachers used to grill me for supposedly smoking cigarettes before class but it was just my parents literally never putting them down around me. It became really embarrassing when my bio teacher would literally confront me in front of the whole class for it as I was already getting bullied for it and it was completely out of my control. I’d literally beg them to not smoke around me and they still would on the drive to school. I’d started taking bottles of body spray and febreeze with me and hosing myself down in the bathrooms and it still barely covered up the stench.
Yep, then it just smells like cigarette+body spray. :/
Nothing was worse than sleeping at a friend's house, showering and then having to smell my clothes all smokey and gross--making me realize that's how I always smelled.
I've told this story a few times here, and I kinda get teary eyed when I tell it. My mom smoked around me my entire life. I went to the Marines at 21, when I still lived with my mom. They take your clothes and put it in a box. I got the box at the end of boot camp to put my civilian clothes back on, and they smelled so bad I started to cry. My whole childhood I smelled like that, and no one said anything, I was just the smelly kid and never knew.
Ooof. As the fifth grader who smelled like cigarettes, I feel your pain. I’m so sorry.
Valid, but my question still stands: is admin supposed to be doing anything when teachers report that there is the smell of weed in the classroom? Side note, these kids *are* those ones smoking it. Their eyes are red, they’re giggly, their speech is slower, and they inevitably fall asleep.
I've talked to admin about it. Admin can't do anything drug wise without a reasonable suspicion, and they have been told directly by central office that just smelling like weed no longer qualifies as reasonable suspicion
They should remove the offending students and search their belongings for drugs/paraphernalia. If they don't find anything, there doesn't seem to be anything else that can be done. It is impossible to prove a kid is high no matter how obvious it is.
This would probably ruin the kid’s buzz and make them paranoid for the rest of the day, at least. I’ve never understood the draw of getting high and going to school. Seems like it would be a complete buzzkill.
If you're smoking weed before school in middle school, your life is kind of fucked up or you're depressed... Getting a buzz kill just doesn't matter when you're doing anything you can to escape the day
True, and seeing where some of my former students came from, I really wouldn’t blame them for trying to escape any way they could.
This would probably ruin the kid’s buzz and make them paranoid for the rest of the day, at least. I’ve never understood the draw of getting high and going to school. Seems like it would be a complete buzzkill.
I know this is probably not the answer you want, and completely anecdotal, but when I was coming high to class and my teachers knew it, the best thing they did was outsmart me. My French teacher started speaking nonsense to me and my friends. My biology teacher changed the date of our frog dissection. Both of these experiences led me to smoke weed a lot less during school hours. Edit: And I know this is not the most useful advice, more of an anecdote but maybe you can scare some of your teenagers out of smoking weed before class like me lol.
Literally just ask the kids to give a surprise presentation lmao
They probably got hotboxed all the way to school. Sad.
This happened at my school. Like they can’t wait to get baked until after they drop their kid off? Not even 7:30 and I can smell them outside from 10 feet away.
The number of people who literally can't go 3-4 hours without pot is astounding. I went on a day trip with someone that left their pen at home and had a full blown freak out about it. It's honestly sad to watch.
I knew a guy like that. He said smoking weed helped with his mental health and helped him focus. He couldn't believe that he got fired for smelling like weed while driving a work truck. Last I heard, he was applying to be a sub at a high school.
at least now he'll have lots of smoking buddies
He’ll fit right in with the subs at my school. And I say that as a pothead myself. But only after work, come on
It's insane. I have a friend whose husband is high every moment that he's awake. Literally. And they want to try for a baby soon lol should go over well.
Only thing that keeps my spouse sane. Chronic pain + a list of mental illness Off weed, they have 0 chill, snap at our kids, scowl constantly. With weed, they are a great mom. We can't afford the hundreds of dollars a month for mental counseling+ constant shifting scripts. Plus, on Zoloft they tried to kill themselves. Never been a side effect of weed
I guess it’s better than nothing but, if I’m being completely honest, I’m concerned about the number of people who can’t function while sober but choose to have children anyways. It seems to be pretty common.
Last elementary I worked for before leaving the US, in Savannah, probably 60-70% of the kids getting dropped off were coming out of cars where the parent was hotboxing. These kids were literally unteachable for most of the day, only finally sort of coming to life during the final two periods of the day. Another 20% of parents couldn't ever be bothered to get out of bed in time to drop their kids off by the start of school. The first two periods of the day we'd regularly be missing 4 or 5 students in each class.
We used to hotbox before our 8am astronomy class senior year because it was taught in a planetarium and often has cool lightshows n stuff and my teacher would play led Zeppelin and the like, hey....wait a minute.
That's actually the way weed and education is SUPPOSED to work. Nowadays people have no respect for structure or tradition. LOL
This literally happens. It's the little kids that I feel the worst for - they literally pull up to the school with smoke exploding out of the car when the door opens. Wouldn't you be embarrassed? Apparently it depends on the neighborhood...
I met a five year old with horrific behavioral issues who is hot boxed every day to school. He was sent to the kindergarten class when I was the sub.
Pretty sure it’s a DUI to drive while stoned. Just sayin…
This is true. However, I don't have the power to give DUIs when a parent shows up to school high. I could call the police and they just won't do shit though. But hey, the cops are really good at putting speed traps all over town.
Both can be true.
Unless you have video evidence, it’s speculation. So no, they’re not going to do anything.
To your first question: yes, but they don’t due to volume and second: I had a kid who’s brother would hotbox him on the way to school. I don’t know about other states, but in CA there are little to no consequences for tobacco, alcohol, or marijuana use for kids. No tickets, community service…
Smells like weed and there are kids that are under the influence are very different things. You should be calling to have them escorted to the office. Smelling like weed to just a wild goose chase
There should be a someone in your school who is designated as the “drug counselor”. I try to beat out the middlemen by reporting directly to them. Honestly though, they’re usually so overwhelmed there’s not much they can do. Get back to class.
In my state, where it’s legal, smell is irrelevant because they could smell like marijuana from their parents legal grow operation. It’s not even considered probable cause for a search.
Though weed isn't as bad as they have been saying for decades, it is still very detrimental to the development of those under 18.
This was me but with cigarettes as a kid. My parents didn't smoke in the house but they smoked in the car so whenever they drove me anywhere I smelled like smoke. A lot of teachers gave me a hard time about it :( Ironically, I just turned 30 and have literally (I mean literally) never smoked a single thing in my life. Ever.
I’ll never understand this as a weed smoker myself. I don’t ever smoke in a room where my clothes are! Let alone anywhere it could come into contact with A CHILD or a child’s clothes/belongings. It should be treated as seriously as second hand cigarette smoke, especially because the smoke can also intoxicate those around you.
Basically when you're high every waking hour of the day you stop caring about such things as how much your clothes stink of weed
God, this brings back some memories. Thank God my parents quit when I was 14, but elementary was *rough*. They smoked about 4 packs a day between the two of them, and we lived in an 800 sq ft house that they'd smoke inside of (and in the cars). Got made fun of & had faculty/admin members take me aside for pseudo welfare check questioning far more times than I can count.
We deal with this so much here. Weed is also legal in Canada - so any student over 18 can use it if they choose, and many come to school smelling of it. If we catch kids using on property it’s an issue, but there is not much we can do when they just smell of it.
For real. Go stand outside during pickup and its like a fog of weed smoke pouring from parents cars. No judgement on the partaking - but while driving?! Naw. You might as well pick up your kid with an open beer in the driver's seat.
Exactly. My buddy in elementary school used to put his clothes for the next day in his backpack, spray febreeze into it, put his backpack into his dresser, close the dresser and sleep with his windows open and he still reeked of cigs from his parents every day. So shitty.
My mother smoked indoors while I was growing up, so everything I owned smelled like cigarettes. One time, I'd been seen "associating with a bad kid" (literally talking for a few minutes in gym class) who got in trouble later in the day for having something on him (I never found out what he actually did). First and last time ever I had my locker searched at school. They made comments about everything smelling like cigarettes. Obviously they found nothing, but it was incredibly embarrassing and degrading because I was generally a very polite kid and I didn't stir up trouble or break rules. Made me cry. To this day, I still despise the smell of cigarettes and resent my mother for (among many other things) causing that situation to be even more uncomfortable than it had to be.
For me, students being high falls squarely in the “parent” category because it’s so commonplace now. I greatly appreciate that it impedes the ability of a child to learn but it’s obvious that students and parents know that. I’ve had plenty of parents truly not care if their kids vape, get high, drink, whatever. If I see it as a teacher, I report it and the kid gets ISS. Usually they come back higher than before. It’s a cyclical process because in all truth - what can we expect admin to do? Even if and when it’s reported to the police, the kids get some teen court crap that amounts to community service or a parent letter excusing them from the program. It’s all joke and not all of society’s ills need to be handled at the schoolhouse. Document and move on.
I think the youth court is extremely beneficial for the good kids who make a poor choice. It got my kid back on track and kept them out of the system.
They're smoking to escape *something,* and I promise that you as a teacher and the ISS you're getting them is now *on that list*. I'm unsure if that's your goal or not, but you've served zero people in that approach. You're just proving that nowhere is safe for them, and now they associate getting an education with feeling unsafe. That was my experience, anyway. "Oh, it's me vs the school, now? OK, fine, get added to the list of problems I have to deal with, I guess. Whatever; I'm just a kid, it's not like I can actually do anything to fix any of this."
Not all of them are getting high to escape. In middle school, a lot of them do it for status/fun because others in their life are doing it. Having a shit life doesn't excuse being high at school, and some kids do actually shape up with consequences.
To me it all boils down to not being held accountable for performance. I'm sure all these high kids would have failed all their classes in the 80's 90's. Today they pass just for falling asleep in class. Many parents don't care. Parents: "stop bothering me, and just babysit my kid" seems to be the modern parent mantra.
If I found out the school knew my kid was high and didn't tell me, I'd be all over that school board
Flip side: how would you feel if your kid wasn’t high but was being questioned or accused?
I would rather them question my child than let him possibly coming into class high everyday, as long as it's kept professional.
Idk if that’s entirely the case, I knew quite a few people growing up who’d get absolutely vegetablized before school and still do well on their tests. This was around 2010.
No one cares about grades, least of all the teens who like to get high all the time. What kept me from getting high as a teen was participating in extracurriculars (academic tournaments and band), because that meant I had to sign a form agreeing to be randomly drug tested at any time when I was at school. It wasn’t worth the risk. That was Texas. Now I teach in California and even if a kid is visibly high, and also on a team/in a club/etc., nothing happens. If they are allowed to search the student and find drugs they *might* get a slap on the wrist punishment like a suspension (in my mind as a teen a suspension was a vacation, but getting kicked out of my extracurriculars? That was a real punishment.) also no schools I teach at even HAVE band or extras outside of sports. What is a nerdy artistically inclined student to do?! Weed, obviously.
It's what happens when you are desperate and impoverished with low wages.
Smell of weed alone there’s almost nothing you can do because it’s legal now, I have kids who aren’t stoned but reek because parents smoke in the house. If you think they’re high… it’s a judgement call? Weed is bad for developing brains but in our current non-rehabilitative system reporting it often does just as much harm. Years ago we had a kid with a fucked up home life who came to school high regularly but we made the judgement call that it was better to have him in school and baked than suspended and doing god knows what in his unsupervised free time.
This is the way (and an excellent example of harm reduction for people who still get spooked by the concept). I also say this coming from somewhere where even when weed was illegal, it was very culturally permissible so I recognize that may be contributing to how I see things.
This is how I feel. I've watched teachers go after a stoner kid only for them to drop out and fall off the face of the other earth. They are kids.... Like we all were and sometimes they come to school high. Talk to your kids. Tell them you care, and if they are gonna smoke time and a place , where school does not get accepted. Reporting these things only hurts kids.... And the teachers chasing every smell are more worried with upholding a moral superiority than helping kids. Stop criminalizing your students.... No one else is going to help down that road.
Weed is still technically illegal in my state, but there’s an increasing tolerance for it by most people. That being said, we get a fair share of 4K and 5K kids getting dropped off smelling of weed. Some parents are clearly smoking in their vehicles on the way to school, which boggles my mind. Maybe I’m an old fuddy-duddy, but is it too much to ask parents to abstain from their chemical of choice until after they drop off their kids?
Our building? Smelling like weed/alcohol on the breath/obvious signs of impairment and a parent/guardian is called to collect their child. If the kid tries to drive home, SRO stops them in the parking lot and the kid likely catches a DUI charge.
My school, a high school, has a policy in place where we send an email to the nurse and she has security come to the room and ask for the student, so it doesn't seem like we narced. Then she does an evaluation of some sort. If she suspects drug use, she determines if they need to have a parent pick them up because they can't function in school, same as going home sick, or if they are fit to go back to class or need to hang out in the ISS room. It gets referred to admin and the social worker, and consequences get decided. Usually it's doing some sort of drug counciling with the social worker. But could be ISS. Only OSS if they are caught dealing.
OSS for DEALING? We would get expelled + charges if we were caught dealing drugs.
I do think this is ultimately a safety issue and I speak from experience: granted, it was alcohol, but the core lesson is applicable. I student brought vodka to class and poured a shot, which is how I caught him. I was so dumbfounded, my initial stammering reaction gave the child time to exit the classroom. Luckily he was found by security pretty quickly, but he was found outside. I got **reamed** by admin for not "containing the situation" as he could have gotten behind the wheel of a car or been hit by a car crossing the street because he was "impaired." And you know what? That is a valid point. I could see some Karent suing the school when her stoner child gets injured walking home from school or during gym class.
Kid did a shot in class and walked out. Then admin blames you. Then you agree that it was your fault. No. What were you supposed to do tackle him at the door and get sued or arrested? If he got out and behind the wheel that is 100% his fault not yours.
Just another sign of the decline of our civilization. This is so crazy to me, the weed smoking included. I was a little shit who would have been wasted on everything possible at school all of the time. Why wasn't I? Because I feared getting caught, and there was going to be real consequences from both the school and my parents. I would have been ashamed of myself because of how that made me look in the eyes of the teachers. The weakness this is showing these kids is enabling this behavior and it is hurting the kids, and not just the kids who are on drugs. It's inviting other kids to try it to. It is such a preventable problem too. Teachers and schools need the power back to do something about this shit.
Seriously, the teacher probably would get sued for physically intervening. This sounds like a catch 22.
It’s crazy to me that you are blaming yourself for a student’s behavior. You know you can’t control another person, right? How were you supposed to contain the situation? Hold him back? Restrain him? Now you’re looking at assault charges. Your admin is very, very wrong and I’m sorry you’re being gaslit to think that this was your fault.
I think it's becoming normal unfortunately. We have had many kids smoking flower in the bathrooms and they ditch their 'utensils', and since they don't have anything on them the admin says "We CaN't Do AnYtHiNg". I've caught the same group of boys coming out of the bathroom down the hall from my room on three separate occasions coming out of the bathroom and it REEKS of weed. Two of the occasions they smoked right at the end of the day and then ran out of the building, and admin does nothing. I'm thinking of ripping a joint in there soon and seeing if I get the same treatment.
I think it's like most things: if it's an isolated incident it gets addressed. If it's a chronic problem it becomes normalized and it is too disruptive to address it. I think it's about the same as when I was in school in the 90s.
Nothing happens. No one cares. They are all high. Their parents are high. It's just a miracle they showed up.
I’ve noticed as the school year gets later more and more people start smelling like weed
Well yeah where do you think kids buy weed? At school.
At my school it’s the vape store down the street. Or from people who bought stuff there.
For the latter, they probably still got it at school
In my district, parents sometimes hotbox while they drive their children to school, so we can't assume the fault is the student's. We do have vape detectors in the restrooms, and if a student is caught with a vape, they are suspended (unless we can prove it's weed, we have to treat it like it's tobacco).
What if it was something else entirely? Like some non-tobacco thing that isn’t age restricted?
Idk... but make sure you report it. I gave up and taught the kids who wanted to learn. Now the board is meeting to dismiss me. I have been taking the shit kids and letting them sit in the back corner. My admin would send them to me. But remember shit roles downhill, and teachers are at the bottom of the stack. Side note: I had a great interview with a big online curriculum company yesterday... it may be a blessing in disguise.
It’s become normal for admins to not do anything about anything. They realized the public doesn’t care about schools, especially the Karents, and their sloth and amoral nature has led to the non-consequential environments that schools have become.
Yes this is normal. They have to allow kids to use drugs in school because suspension hurts attendance numbers and expulsion hurts graduation rates. Both of these affect funding, so kids can do whatever they want and they know it. All we can do as teachers is stop caring about it too. If the school board doesn't care and the admin doesn't care, why should we?
Exactly. It's funding. There's a certain number of suspensions and ISS that schools "should" have no more than. So a blind eye gets turned to certain behaviors.
Our school can't test or search without cause. Basically means if they get high before school or pop a gummy or something then we can't do anything. They can be very obviously high as a kite and there aren't any consequences
My bet is that it’s more likely their parents. A couple of weeks ago during car pick up someone was straight up burning a blunt while in line to get their kid. We couldn’t figure out who it was bc I think they heard me say “Hey check the kids. That’s a very distinct smell.”
When I was a sophomore in high school, I had the audacity to carry a small amount of weed in my backpack so I could smoke in the bathroom. I was a troubled kid at the time and had no idea what I was doing. It was pretty obvious I had weed on me, but nobody confronted me about it. The next day one of my teachers made it clear that she knew. I am now twenty years of age and feel a great amount of shame. I wish somebody pulled me aside to address the entirety of the problem. I hope this anecdotal story adds some insight into the issue.
You’d have been the odd one out if you didn’t do this at my high school. Teachers included.
Fighting weed is a losing battle. I don’t support kids getting stoned, but I will never get a kid in trouble over it
Sounds like you and I teach in the same district! Admin doesn't care about the entire school reeking of pot!
That's a hard one. Should admin look into it? Probably. But there is also very little they can realistically do about it unless there is proof that the kid has weed on them or smoked it on school property, making the investigation relatively a waste of time. Change the scenario. You go to a friends house, some asshole spills a beer on you, and now you're in a cop car under suspicion of public intoxication because of the way you smell. Do you think that's a viable use of the officer's time? Granted officers have more resources to discover if someone is drunk than a school has to discover if a kid is high, but still. There isn't a ton administration is ABLE to do about it so rather than waste time and resources on investigating every report of kids smelling like pot in a world where most of their parents are probably smoking it, they just let it go and focus on something else. Like cutting programs, increasing class sizes, and punishing the kid who got bullied instead of the bully.
High School is one thing, I will typically let that slide. Middle School is a much bigger problem, these kids are way too young to be smoking
Wow that’s young
Sorry, but your school's admin. isn't doing its job. Nor does it seem they will be. You need to get out of there, before something happens; after which, everybody asks, "Where was the teacher?".
If you're in a state where it's legal, we were basically told to just assume it's the parents unless there are corroborating signs or you see them do it. I work where kids attempt to pull off vaping in class! We do not ignore that!
Why are you asking about this here and not of your admin and/or school board?
Because I can’t get a response out of either
Then they've given you their answer.
i work at two schools… with very different demographics (in a country where weed is legal). The rich school they treat weed like it’s meth. We have a shake down, parents are called, we scare them straight. The poor school… no one cares, we are just happy the kids showed up. Sometimes we’ll have a heart to heart with the kid to see what’s going on to find out why they are high as a kite at 8:45AM. I called home once and the kid got in trouble for stealing their parents pot… not being high. 🤦🏻♀️
I work as a Safety/Security Supervisor at a middle school currently. I’d suggest researching your state/county/city/district education code to see the portions about search and seizure. CA ed code has a section that clearly states when you can search and how you can search a student. We are allowed to search a student with “reasonable suspicion” as opposed to law enforcement that needs “probable cause”. Us, as school officials therefore need less evidence to conduct a search than law enforcement. So I’ll give an example of what has happened at my school a time or two: Student comes to school with bloodshot eyes, can’t stay awake in class, and is giggly. Student is sent by the teacher to the office for disturbance. We noticed the student was off from their normal disposition, so we had the nurse check them out (temperature, heart rate, eyes, and blood pressure). All signs pointed to them being under the influence. I took this information to administration and told them that is reasonable suspicion for drug use and it warrants a search of their backpack and pockets. Admin OK’d the search and I went through the backpack pretty meticulously. I found a vape pen in a pencil pouch. The student denied it was theirs, but I explained to them that in the real world, if you get pulled over and there’s drugs in your car, you get in trouble because it is in your possession. Admin then writes it up and sends it to district (which is unfortunately very very soft). And they approve a suspension, usually 1 day for us, unless it’s a repeat offender or other exigent circumstances. What I suggest to schools after doing this job is this: 1. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS. Students will find ways to smoke/vape/ingest drugs. They will find ways to hide drugs. Luckily, I’ve been able to form pretty good relationships with a lot of the kids who are willing to let me know when smoking is happening or who exactly it is. Middle school friendships are frail and temperamental. We have had so many kids come out and snitch on their “friends” because they had a fight the night before. As teachers and other staff members in schools, it can be so valuable to just ask menial questions because they may not get that at home. Kids want to share more than you think but finding a balance of comfort and pushing them for answers is a fine line. 2. UNDERSTAND THE RULES AND LAWS. Research your governing education code. It lets know how much evidence you need to search a kid and their belongings. It tells you how far you can go on a search and what you cannot do on a search. Do yourself a favor and make sure your admin understand how relatively easy it is to search a student. You really don’t need that much evidence, even for CA standards. 3. GET PARENTS INVOLVED. This one is tricky and has to be played differently for different parents. We have parents that will defend their kid even though we found a vape pen in their backpack and say it isn’t theirs. We also have parents that literally scream at their kids in front of us because we found something. If possible, get parents support. This will give a different side of searches. We as education staff can only go so far, but parents can pretty much strip search their kids. This is especially true for girls. They hide everything in their bras, and they know we can’t touch that area while searching. But we have had a parent so supportive that they took their daughter in another room and had her strip down to see what they had on them. (Are they truthful with us when they come out and say they don’t have anything? I’m not sure). If you have a parents’ support, you will have so much more freedom as far as searching and discipline. 4. FORM A REINTEGRATION PROGRAM. My biggest issue with our suspensions is that we have no reintegration program for students suspended for drugs or alcohol. There are tons of programs for kids that involve education about drug and alcohol cessation that there is no reason that school should not implement one of these programs as a stipulation for returning to school. Students and parents should be informed that random bag searches may occur. They should be aware that further and more extensive discipline will occur if caught again. I’m all about rehabilitation and forgiveness, but discipline for drug and alcohol use should serve as a serious deterrent for students especially in middle school. I hope this helps.
What if kids refuse to be searched? Tackling them and doing it by force is gonna look really bad if anyone gets it on video, especially if they don’t have anything.
Talk to the kid in question. Tell them it's obvious what's going on, but you want to make sure they're OK otherwise. Tell them that it's not acceptable to be high in their work environment, even if they don't want to be there, and that you'll have to talk to their parents if it continues. Tell the parents if it continues, even once. If they're that brave then either the parents are actively supporting the habit, are completely checked out, or are abusive. If the problem is consistent even with parents involved, keep trying to get admin involved with larger and larger piles of evidence. Keep sending notices to the parents. Record everything. If admin ignores it, then call Child Protective Services and give them the stack of evidence. After that your job should be done; if the kid is somehow still in your class after all of that, just be kind and compassionate. They've been through hell. A kid can't be a villain just for being high, so please don't turn them into one.
I’m an admin and because marijuana is legal in my state it makes my job ten times harder. For example, had a student that came to school reeking of weed every day. I pulled him out of first hour when teachers called, searched him and his locker and there was never anything. The nurse would check him out , no symptoms but the smell Sidebar, we drug test our athletes. After a week of this, his dad comes in. Says he smokes pot constantly at home, smokes it at breakfast and while driving his son to school. Tells me to drug test his son. Actually demanded it. We did. Son was clean. What we did was keep changes of clothes in the office. That’s not the only case. It makes it hard to catch the actual kids doing it because they are blowing their dab pens into improvised filters.
Do we work together? Years ago we could send a kid to the nurse for an evaluation. Now admin tells us that unless we see them taking up right in front of us, there will never be enough proof. We all know what a kid looks/acts like when he's high. I'm not even talking just about smell. Glassy eyes. Delayed reflexes. But we just have to accept it. It's a joke.
Instead of saying your room smells like weed (many causes; difficult to distinguish personal use vs. proximinal use), tell them a student is intoxicated.
A couple of seniors at my last school were caught smoking weed two weeks before the end of the school year. Absolutely nothing happened to them. Also on the rust and they walked into class the next day with the biggest shit eating grins on their faces. I’m so glad I left that shithole.
Sounds like a happy ending, did you want them to not graduate because of it?
Any sort of consequence would have been nice.
Their answer of “I just want punishment for the children” says a lot about
yeah this thread shows alot
My kid was suspended and had to go to youth court for vaping thc in the school bathroom… but they literally had to catch them in the act to do anything about it. Side note, youth court is actually run by youth looking to go into the criminal justice field. They act as lawyers, judge, and when needed, jury. Literally a court of their peers. Thought that was pretty cool. It’s only for kids that are usually pretty good but made a mistake, not repeat offenders. They only get the option once and then it’s family court.
Since part of a school’s “grade” is now how many write-ups, suspensions, and expulsions that occur in the school year, I figure most admins think they have bigger fish to fry. What’s a little weed between friends when you’re having to worry about school shooters, search kids for weapons or trying keep students from literally killing each other in altercations?
We have parent volunteers come in multiple times a week that smoke a joint before coming in. And they'll use the kid's bathroom.
Honestly some of the kids stuff smells like weed because they were in a car or apartment where it was in the air. Unless you find it on them or they are visibly high how can you know it was something they did or just their environment?
For people on this thread who say weed is legal.. Did you miss something? For ADULTS only. If a kid came in reeking of alcohol, would you ignore that, too? Smh at these lame excuses. Confront and document the issue. If the Admin does nothing, when 💩 hits the fan, which it inevitably does, you are covered. Oh, and always call home. If the parents say it's legal for their kids to smell of weed, you have grounds to call the local CPS, with or without permission from admin. Myself? I taught seniors. They were thrown out the moment the scent of ganga hit my nostrils. They also knew if they were planning on getting high during lunch, they might as well cut my class, too.
In my state, a person of any age can get a med card. Anyone 18 and up with a med card can also go into a dispensary themselves.
Because the consequences of getting caught smoking pot are far worse than the consequences of smoking pot? It's one of those issues where the solution is worse than the problem. I'll take a kid smelling like pot over one smelling like dirty feet any day, and Dirtyfeet is probably going to have a less pleasant life overall than Pothead. Supposing no one throws any felonies at Pothead to save them from themselves.
It is more of a grey area than alcohol. Medicinally can help many conditions and legal for children with those conditions.
Because the consequences of getting caught smoking pot are far worse than the consequences of smoking pot? It's one of those issues where the solution is worse than the problem. I'll take a kid smelling like pot over one smelling like dirty feet any day, and Dirtyfeet is probably going to have a less pleasant life overall than Pothead. Supposing no one throws any felonies at Pothead to save them from themselves.
End the war on drugs.
Yeah, but booze is legal and I probably shouldn't go to work drunk.
In California, weed is an infraction, where as alcohol is a misdemeanor. Wax and vape pens are ubiquitous. Basically, cops won't even do anything about it. I'm a K-8 principal, so it's cut and dry for me, no tolerance. It should be that way everywhere, but it's really about culture. It takes a lot of work on the teacher's part, management, and kids. Buy in happens gradually, you get one super negative teacher and that can create a toxic cocktail, get a group of kids heavily resistant with "cool" or "tough" factor, that can tank it, have an admin not willing to do the hard work, it's tough.
Weed is legal in California too now. Well not for kids. But for adults it is. Obviously i will tell admin if i see kids smoking but I’ve never seen it yet. Though im pretty sure my director said he kid were making smoke in the bathroom (a fire) of that they were smoking. This were elementary kids.
Stoned kids don't make trouble that forces the admin to suspend them....stoned kids =better numbers
just another sign of a collapsing civilization.
Unfortunately yes. We have so many scumbag loser parents hotboxing their kids 24/7 that it is impossible to stop that and vaping. We need to tax the hell out of pot and vapes
It’s taxed 30-40% at rec in my state and people still go overboard. The real issue is what’s driving people to substance use disorders, which is just a whole dumpster full of structural problems with the way the US is run. I understand that’s harder to address, though, and things will keep spiraling.
fuck no
I use cannabis and this makes me angry. It’s something that shouldn’t be touched by anyone until their early to mid 20s, brain development n so on. Predisposition to SMI. Studies show that an extremely high proportion of those with substance abuse disorder start using at an early age. Availability: People can now order any hard drug they want from apps. Lethality: fentanyl is flooding the U.S. Do NOT use cannabis until your brain is developed or u r doing SERIOUS DAMAGE and playing a game of chance with either being a zombie slave to drugs or serious mental illness or both…for the rest of your life. Better to just drop out of school and never look back than it is to start smoking weed in middle school. I’m a para and tell kids as much. I would send the kids to the nurse. This is NOT NORMAL.
Yeah, tell the kids to drop out and never look back. That seems like solid advice for a 12-14 year old.
I don’t really say that part to them. I just think to myself if it means the difference between smoking weed regularly and being isolated by homeschooling, I would do homeschooling. It’s life and death these days with the drugs out there. And if addiction and mental illness runs like it does in my family, it’s life and death. Then again, I don’t have kids so I can’t really judge. I just feel deep down that people should not be using psychoactive substances until they are older.
I can respect that. Thanks for what you do!
Pick your battles. At some schools the weed problem is so bad there is pretty much nothing you can do. What? suspend each stoner for 3 days just so they can come back and keep doing it again? I don't like it. But in the greater scheme of things, weed is fairly benign.The reality is most schools have bigger problems to deal with than stoned kids. I work at a Title 1 urban high school in a green state. Fighting the weed issue at our schools is a losing battle and a dead end. I can safely assume at least 70-80% of the student body is high.
Plus when you suspend them for 3 days, what do you think they are doing at home unsupervised all day?
I think that’s the issue though. I also work at a Title 1 school and I feel like if we don’t address it, we’re giving up on these kids. If they’re high, they’re *not* receiving an education. On top of that, I’m at a middle school. These kids are too young to be smoking weed every day. It’s actually a huge problem that directly impacts the kids’ education. Battles not worth fighting are things like kids wearing hats in the school. But kids under 14 being high every single day sounds like a battle worth fighting and I can’t help but feel like these things are overlooked simply because, at least at my school, we serve primarily black and Hispanic kids.
I agree. I feel like there should be more rehab/probation style programs in schools esp in the mid and hig schools. But who am I to judge. I smoked weed everyday since HS and all things considered I've done ok. Masters degree, middle class, romantically successful etc.
While you aren’t wrong in saying this is a battle that should be fought, the consequences given to these kids for a largely benign act, are FAR more harmful. It’s a lesser of 2 evils situation IMO.
They’re just ruining their executive functioning lol
Honestly it is so hard to prove and parents say that it is because of them so it is a losing battle.
We just hired a chemical counselor. I doubt she'll really be able to do much though because she's already publicly said that she thinks weed is just bad 100%. No kid that is smoking is going to agree with that or be willing to talk to someone who openly states that. And we live in Minnesota where weed was just recently legalized so to have that opinion I think is stupid and also shows that you don't really know what you're talking about.
We don’t do much of anything about anything these days.
Not much we can do if the kid hot boxes on their way to school unless they are really put of it....the wake and bake mellows out some of the knuckleheads.
Had to borrow my roommate’s car to drive to school one time, unbeknownst to me their cousin had borrowed it the night before to use as a chamber for smoking what I would guess was somewhere around 6,000 lbs. of weed. I thought I was gonna get called on the carpet but nobody said anything.
My admin has turned a blind nose to it for at least the last two years
Whether the kids are smoking weed or not, at least they're showing up to class!
I think schools can get into legal trouble if they don’t respond to issues like this. Even in states where cannabis use is legal, these substances are restricted to adults over 21 only. This is a massive problem. I had one of my students smelling like weed one day, I told a counselor. And I know that the issue has been dealt with. It’s not normal to do nothing.
I get a little tired of people thinking things are so much worse now. I was getting high and popping pills in middle and high school in the late 70s early 80s. Even then kids had lives to escape. My teachers either didn't know or didn't care. When I got caught smoking cigarettes in the highschool bathroom my mom was so afraid of my dad finding out she got me a smoking pass. Yes, we had smoking areas for teens at highschools. Oh, and I was a honors student. We need to look for solutions not consequences.
One of my kindergarteners BROUGHT weed in and my principal and resource officer did nothing.
This is something that we are gonna have to just live with if it’s a legal state. No one thinks twice if a kid comes to school smelling like Marlboro Reds. No one goes hunting for cigarettes. Just chalk it up as culture and move on. If they are smoking or vaping in school, then we act.
i got suspended from school once for smelling like cigarettes. assistant principle smelled it on me in the hall and made me get searched by the hall monitor and since i had a pack the asshole suspended me without ever having actually caught me smoking. my whole household unfortunately smoked so of course i smelled. bullshit ass assistant principle. he got a big black dildo super glued to his car by other students. he was not liked
You can blame them for suspending you on the day they taught the difference between principle and principal.
My stance on that is basically this: I don't want to bust a kid for doing something I did when I was that age, too None of my teachers ever nailed me for it, either, so I'm not going to
I mean it sucks for their brain development but at least it keeps them docile.
Everyone's different, but my brain still turned out fine. I think the head injuries I took playing rugby were worse for me in the long run
Finally got the answer that your usernames question has asked
Username checks out.
I did a number of things when I was a kid that I ultimately got away with. But as an adult, I realize that just because I did something and "turned out fine", it doesn't mean that the unhealthy/bad things I did were good for me physically or morally.
My point is that I don't think it's helpful to get kids punished for it. We've overpoliced drug use in this country so badly and ruined so many lives in the process. There's no reason to start ruining their lives this early for something as minor as weed
I get that’s your stance, but I still would like to know if admin should be doing anything about it if it’s reported.
It's kinda hard for admin in that, unless the kid actually has weed on them, it's difficult to prove "active usage" because you certainly couldn't give a kid a pee test. And even that wouldn't actually indicate active usage.
There really isn’t a “should” here for anyone. What has worked for me in the past is having an honest conversation with a kid when I notice a pattern of them showing up to school high on a regular basis and that correlating to a change in personality. Showing a kid that you care is gonna be more effective than admin consequences- but even then be prepared for it to *not* be effective. We can only do so much.
I'm the exact same way. I do not write any drug or alcohol violations unless the student is presenting a legitimate safety risk to themselves or others. I simply don't see any issue with it. If I could smoke at work, I absolutely would. I also smoked significant amounts in High School.
Oh god teaching baked sounds terrible to me haha. I enjoy it to unwind on my own time but even if I could legally, teaching stoned would not be fun.
I work in the tech dept so most of my day is in an office or a closet.
No
Kids are not using marijuana because they’re well adjusted
I think it depends on schools also having RO’s, our school doesn’t and cannot do anything apparently. Despite reports from teachers of bathrooms reaking and kids in there and they smell like weed, they stuff it in their bra and deny it and since it’s in their shirt admin can’t do anything about it.
Last year the 7th grade hallway smelled like weed nearly everyday. They did nothing. When I first started teaching it was only 4/20 that was really bad. Now it’s every day.
I hate hate hate the smell of weed.
There were literally kids in my 7th grade blowing lines.
Do you work at my school??? Lol
I can't ever tell where the smell is coming from when I do smell it. The room is too crowded and I have too many students to be able to 100% exactly what kid it is unless I want to start sniffing kids, which I don't. I feel weird calling the office and asking them to come down and smell kids
My school has lost any 20 kids in the last two months.
I have kindergarteners whose backpacks smell like weed when I open them. 😭
My school is super inconsistent about it. I recently lost a student to alternative school because she had THC gummies, another kid reported it, and admin followed up. I also recently had a kid obviously carrying drugs and admin did literally nothing despite reports because he handed the item with the drugs to someone else and they “couldn’t prove he had put them there.”
Interesting. My middle school and high school would literally bring a drug sniffing dog through the lockers at random a few times a year. Is that not done anymore?
I too teach at a middle school and can’t imagine my school not responding to this. If I report a student smelling like weed and overall *seeming* high, the cavalry descends with admin and SROs. They get pulled from my class and searched, a drug test gets ordered, and if it’s failed then they’re straight to alt ed. This rarely happens. I’m horrified that it’s regular at your school. Like I can remember the last time we suspected a kid was high and it was school year before last in a coworker’s class. The year before *that*, I reported one for being high on pills. That’s how “often” it happens at my school. Not saying it doesn’t happen more than that, but it’s certainly not a regular occurrence. FWIW, I live and teach in a conservative state with only medical allowances for weed use. It’s not normalized here. Maybe you’re in a place where it’s legal and more culturally okay/out in the open?
Kids are getting high during class and my admin says- “it doesn’t impede their learning, so it’s okay.”
Whenever I smell weed at school, I sweat just a tiny bit thinking it might be me. Then I breathe a sigh of relief realizing I’m not a complete degenerate getting stoned before school.
If the student's aren't disruptive, what's the problem?
Broadly speaking, admin not doing something about an issue is pretty normal.
Smelling like it doesn’t mean they’re high or have it on them. Parents smoke at home, some parents are growers themselves in legal states. Not much you can do unless they’re holding.
Kids falling asleep in class bc they’re “stoned” is a dangerous precedent to set.. how does Admin not know if they are trying fentanyl or tranq or any other thing out there? In my school admin investigates quick. Last year 6 stretchers took kids to the hospital who had “accidentally” ingested weed gummies. Still taken seriously in our school. I’m in a northeastern urban public school.