Some of Arlington’s secondary schools may see vape-detection equipment placed in bathrooms to address ongoing use of nicotine and THC oil by students.
“Bathrooms are a trouble area – other students feel unsafe,” School Board member Mary Kadera said during a recent School Board meeting, during which school leaders attempted to reassure the public that they were taking drug abuse among the student body seriously.
Kadera said she has been following pilot programs in Stafford County and Maryland’s Montgomery County, which are using technology in an effort to root out vaping without excessive intrusion into the lives of students who aren’t causing problems.
Kadera told Superintendent Francisco Durán that she wasn’t proposing a blanket implementation, but “deploying it in a targeted way and trying it out.”
The superintendent replied that staff are following the pilot programs elsewhere.
Perhaps from time immemorial, middle-school and secondary-school bathrooms have been a breeding ground for behavior school officials, parents and probably other students wish did not occur.
At one point, doors were removed from bathroom stalls in at least one county high school to address problems.
