Your teenage daughter gets "busted" at school under the school's "zero tolerance" policy. The drug? Ibuprofen. How do you react?

The way I look at this is twofold... 1) I see the school's point 2) the school is stupid. Oh, wait, that's judgmental. Let me try again.

BECAUSE the school has a policy, like it or not, the parent probably should follow the policy, while seeking to affect change through some other course of action. As for the school's policy about these things, I understand the school's reasonings for these things, but they just aren't practical for most people. For example, some high school students are 18 years old and a handful can even be 19 and 20 years old, and in America, these are legal adults.

They shouldn't have to get parent's permission to buy aspirin or ibuprofen that is legally sold over the counter to them anywhere in the country and take that with them to school and use it should they need it. But there has to be a dividing line somewhere - is a 6 year old able to have it? My son once took a pill another boy gave him.

They were running laps and my son was wheezing. He'd just gotten over a bout of bronchitis, so of course, he was wheezing some. The other boy told my son that his brother wheezed like that and he took pills for it (the boy's brother was asthmatic.) My son was about 8 years old.

The next day, the boy brought a pill that his brother used for wheezing to school and gave it to my son before they ran laps. I'd had all the talk with my son about not taking medicine people give him, not doing drugs, not taking things from strangers.It just simply never occurred to my son not to take this pill. This kid was his friend, his brother wheezed, the pill helped his brother, and so my son took it too.

We discovered later the pill was Singular. Fortunately, that wasn't something that would hurt my son to take once. But the school has the rule for a reason.

I think that what messes up the 'reason' for the rule is the strict adherence to the rule and the punishment - ie: zero tolerance - in which an administrator at the school can't be bothered to take the time to hear all side and make a reasonable and supposedly educated decision about how to dole out punishment and instead treats every offense as though it was crack cocaine. That's the problem: zero tolerance. Okay, off my soapbox now.

Quite how outraged I would be would depend a bit on how the policy is implemented. If the school has a zero tolerance. If the school hadn't previously to me that this rule was in place I'd be furious.

Since it would be an arbitrary decision on behalf of the school. However if the school had told me, and I hadn't contacted the school nurse or complied with whatever procedure was in place then it is my fault. Its terrible that my daughter is punished for my mistake but its not the schools fault.

And I'm certainly not going to heap any more punishment on my daughter. In either case I'd want to speak to the principal immediately, A 3 day suspension from school is no trivial matter especially for what is an 'honest mistake' on either my part or the schools part. I'd want an explanation of how to deal with the 'problem' if it came up again.

What is the role of the nurse in uch a matter. Is there a possibility of an alternative punishment that would be less disruptive to her education, could the sentence be suspended for period if no other offences occured. At the very least I'd want the materials, assignments, homework for those 3 days so that she wouldn't have to catch up too much when she returned.In the unlikely event of the principal not being helpful at this point, I'd raise it with the school board/governors...

That's ridiculous! I would pull her out of school completely and contact other parents who may be having this problem. If I were your daughter, I would go buy a huge bottle full of ibuprofen and deposit one pill in each locker all the way down the line and then call in an anonymous tip that someone has drugs in their lockers.

They would do a school-wide search of all lockers and when they find an ibuprofen pill in each locker, they would be forced to expell everyone under that rule. LOL! Here's a piece of information you may find helpful.My mother was a school teacher.

The school gets money from the state for every kid in school on a particular day. It's called ADA money.As long as the student is in school by a certain time of day, whenever roll call is done, the school gets money for that student being in school for that day. I can't remember how much it is, but my point is that you can use this information to your advantage.

Get together with other parents who find this ridiculous and have them ALL pull their kids out of school. Power in numbers! That rule won't last long.

I would fight it all the way. This is an over the counter medication, she was taking it appropriately, she was not sharing or selling it, she had parental permission to have it and she is old enough to take it responsively. This is not a drug that has any effects that would cause recreational use like ritilan or even inhalers.By being so rigid the school is only teaching your daughter to see only black and white solutions to issues and infringing upon her right to a free and appropriate public education and privacy.

She cannot concentrate in class if she has cramps or stays home and it is not the business of the office staff or school nurse to know that she has cramps. If you stand up for her rights in this situation you will help her learn to advocate for herself and hopefully bring to light the school's excessive rigidity. Good luck!

I would tell the principal that your child had ibuprofen because you told her that she had to have it with her. Therefore, the principal should not punish your daughter because your daughter had no choice in the matter.

I would definitely fight it. I'm not sure what step #1 would be though. You could do a number things, from taking her on an extravagant shopping trip for the three days she's suspended (and publicizing it) to renting a billboard in town criticizing the people in charge.

The next time this happens though, I do hope the parents' actions are swift and attention grabbing. I really hate to say this as it sounds a little underhanded, but perhaps the best way to prevent something like this from happening is to encourage your child not to own up to possessing pain medication quite so easily. It's a sad state of affairs.

I'd be done there before I hung up the phone. Ibuprofen is an over the counter drug for one. Two, if I give my child a drug and she's not sharing it with others that's none of the schools damn business.It's an anti-inflammatory I cannot conceive anyway that it could be abused in the first place.

I sure as hell wouldn't punish her.

Since I oppose most Zero Tolerance policy's, I say use this as an excuse to fight the policy. Make this a mushroom cloud of annoyance for the people who use a Zero Intelligence approach to rules and discipline. Call the principal, superintendent, school board members, local radio talk shows and more.

Write letters to the editor of your local newspapers. Show the community just how stupid this sort of policy is. You probably won't overturn the decision since since the daughter did violate the policy, but a big enough stink might help get this rule changed.

Note that in some schools suspended students receive failing grades for everything that they miss. If this is the case in your hypothetical example, it could affect the teen's GPA and how colleges perceive her. Thus, it is conceivable that in some cases this could cost the daughter a scholarship or an admission letter.

This is admittedly an unlikely worst-case scenario, but it is possible. It would have been better to rally the parents against this Zero Tolerance approach before it was formally implemented, as that would saved the girl (and likely many others) from a pointless suspension. Nevertheless, given the precise conundrum you proposed I say make a fuss.

On the bright side, this experience offers a great opportunity for teaching the daughter a number of things, including that life is often unfair. Our society is gradually being taken over by lazy, dehumanizing bureaucrats that are so fearful of lawsuits that they resort to ill conceived blanket policies. Such policies and the bureaucrats that support them should be watched closely and opposed at every opportunity.

Use the situation to teach the daughter how to oppose them by voting, writing letters and more. Regarding the last part of your question: mitigating her punishment I say there should be no punishment in addition to the suspension. You can tell the school you gave her the medicine, but most likely they won't care whether it came from you or a street corner crack dealer since the policy is for "Zero Tolerance".

Omg it an't bad it an't like laratabs or oxentcotten she probly had some pain.

Before I go into the actual question, I need to mention the following: Depending on her age, she shouldn't be using Ibuprofen at all. There is a safety warning for children of 14 years old and younger: --quote-- "Use Ibuprofen/Oxycodone with extreme caution in CHILDREN younger than 14 years of age. Safety and effectiveness in this age group have not been confirmed." --quote-- (Source: drugs.com/cdi/ibuprofen-oxycodone.html) Then, onto your question: The school has an explicit no-drugs policy, and normally all parents are told about this.

Ibuprofen is a narcotic so yes, your daughter violated that regulation. However, taking circumstances into account, I would label this as a 'honest mistake' by your daughter, and for one, I wouldn't punish her in addition to the punishment by her school. Next, I would probably visit her school, to discuss the issue, which I would always do, if my kid was caught 'with drugs'.

However, in this case I would ask the school whether they have an extensive list of 'drugs', or whether their drug-policy is based on 'as they go' decisions, and why they labeled ibuprofen as a drug. I would also tell them that a 'zero drug' regulation also means no more coffee during breaks, as coffee is also labelled a drug, and way more addictive than medicine.(Source :kaffeeverband.de/pdf/kt1-99.pdf) I would try to argue against the three days suspension, as I would consider that way over the top, and I would indeed try to get some arrangement, in which my daughter was allowed to carry a limited amount of Ibuprofen when on doctors' prescription of with my written consent. If the school wouldn't budge, I wouldn't make this a deal-breaker, and just let my daughter take the temporary suspension, but I would explain to her that I won't hold it against her in any way.

As you can see in the picture below, Ibuprofen (which contains ibotenic acid) IS actually a drug!

I would fight for her and bring this matter to attention. Schools should be more flexible, not rigid. Having been teachers and counselors, I know that rigidity is useless.

We intend to educate the children, not making them worse off.

I have a little bit different take than most of the answerers here. I'm not as outraged. Is this an absurd situation?Absolutely.

But is it surprising? No. It's not surprising at all that paranoid school systems nowadays would have issues with OTC medications at school.

I'm surprised that you and your daughter were not more aware of the administrative paranoia that is sweeping the nation, and that your kiddo wasn't more discreet with her medication. But that's all in the past. So, she got busted.It was a legitimate, if ridiculous, bust.

The only possible lesson she could take away from this is that in the real world, rules often aren't fair or reasonable and you have to learn to play by them anyway.Sigh. I wouldn't waste my time fighting it.It's only a three day suspension that won't harm her chances of getting into a good school. She can get class notes and homework to keep up.

If anything, take this time and put it to good use! Do some bonding with your daughter! Maybe this would be a great time to go tour some colleges?

Or hell, what about going to the movies together? Is there any project or visit she's been meaning to get to for some time? Consider this a bonus vacation and look for the positive in it.

No one's really getting hurt and this could actually be a laughable memory for the two of you in the not-too-distant future.At the end of the day, if you can't swat the bees out of your bonnet over this injustice, then begin petitions to change the policy. But fighting this particular incident doesn't really accomplish anything and will probably just waste your time while raising your blood pressure. Life's too short!

:).

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.