The White House wants more schools to adopt random student drug-testing programs. NEWSWEEK talks to advocates on both sides of the issue.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy announced last week that it will be holding four regional summits promoting random student drug testing in public middle and high schools. The controversial program, which has already been implemented in nearly 1,000 middle and high schools across the country, requires that kids submit to random drug testing if they want to participate in competitive extracurricular activities like athletics. The Department of Education offers grants to schools that want to develop or expand a drug-testing programs for children in grades 6-12, but decisions about whether to test and which drugs to test for are made on an individual school level. The testing is usually done by a school nurse with a urine sample taken on school premises. If there’s a positive result, the sample is sent out for verification by a lab. Tests can also be done with blood or saliva. Samples are generally tested for cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, opium-based substances, oxycontin and, in some cases, steroids. (more…)

For many highschoolers, prom is one of the most important and anticipated events. Prom is a special night to look forward to and fantasize about for months beforehand. However, for some teens, the prom can seem like just another reason to worry and feel stressed out. Here are some strategies for overcoming the prom stress from the article Keeping Your Cool Under Prom Pressure. (more…)

Asphyxiation games have been around for decades - and for some reason the brief euphoric high from lack of oxygen continues to intrigue teenagers. However, several publicized deaths over the past few years, as well as Internet sites like YouTube displaying the game in more threatening variations, are spurring a discussion in schools and among parents’ groups, guidance counselors and physicians. Many psychologists believe that this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed openly and aggressively.

Levi Draher has received national attention after sharing his near death experience. Click here to view a video of Draher’s talk about the deadly game.

In a New York Times article, 16-year-old Draher Casts Light on a Shadowy Game.

GERONIMO, Tex. - Levi Draher, 16, walked to the front of the Navarro High School gym in early March and picked up the microphone before a hushed audience of fellow teenagers.

“I died and came back,” he said. (more…)

Maggie started off her junior year of high school with great energy. She had no trouble keeping up with her schoolwork and was involved in several after-school activities. But after the Thanksgiving break, she began to have difficulty getting through her assigned reading and had to work harder to apply herself. She couldn’t concentrate in class, and after school all she wanted to do was sleep.

Maggie’s grades began to drop and she rarely felt like socializing. Even though Maggie was always punctual before, she began to have trouble getting up on time and was absent or late from school many days during the winter.

At first, Maggie’s parents thought she was slacking off. They were upset with her, but figured it was just a phase especially since her energy finally seemed to return in the spring. But when the same thing happened the following November, they took Maggie to the doctor, who diagnosed her with a type of depression called seasonal affective disorder. (more…)

The following article about studying abroad as a college student was written by By Brooke Kosofsky Glassberg for Budget Travel.

What to ask the advisor of the university program that — if all goes well — will change your life.

What’s the program like?Who your fellow students are and what courses you sign up for have a big impact on your experience. “Island” programs, like the NYU Center in Prague, are populated by Americans. If you enroll at a foreign school like the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, meanwhile, your classmates will primarily be locals.

“When I was a master’s student, I took a third of my classes at the University of Florence, which gave me the opportunity to meet Italian students and professors,” says Adam Gagliardo, assistant director of Study Abroad Admissions at New York University. “It introduced me to a side of Italian culture that I never would have seen in an exclusively American school.”

As for classes, students generally want to learn about the culture rather than simply fulfill a math requirement. To find out more about a particular program, ask for referrals of students who have recently participated. (more…)

For the last few years, high school guidance counselors have been asked to address the self-abusing practice of cutting. Mostly believed to be a behavior displayed in disturbed or troubled teens, many colleges and universities are now reporting a culture of cutting on their campuses.

Cnn.com reports that, “nearly 1 in 5 students at two Ivy League schools say they have purposely injured themselves by cutting, burning or other methods, a disturbing phenomenon that psychologists say they are hearing about more often.”

Guidance counselors have been reporting increased numbers of cutting in colleges, high schools and middle schools across the nation.
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After months of high profile cases involving sexual predators searching for young victims on popular social networks, Myspace.com is fighting back.

Popular online social networking hub MySpace.com said Monday it will begin displaying public service ads aimed at educating its users, many of them teens, about the dangers posed by sexual predators on the Internet.

MySpace, a division of News Corp., enables computer users to meet any of more than 60 million members. Users put up profiles that are searchable and can include photos of themselves and such details as where they live and what music they like.

But MySpace’s features and popularity with teens has raised concerns with authorities across the nation. There have been scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors they met through the site.

Learn more about how to keep teens safe in wake of the online social networking explosion.

There was a time when sending students with learning disabilities off to college was unheard by most guidance counselors. That has changed and now 32 percent of learning disabled students are pursuing higher education.

The following article by Boston Globe correspondent, Kay Lazar, appeared online March 30.

The question is not whether Christine Logan will head off to college, but rather which passion she will pursue.

The Wakefield teenager became fascinated with forensics after getting hooked on the TV crime show ”CSI” and now thinks law enforcement might be the way to go. But Logan, 16, also is captivated by children — she is the most popular baby sitter on the block — and is considering a teaching career, too.

One factor is certain. Logan, who has dyslexia, will have to navigate a difficult path in her search for the perfect school. But she is determined.
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Public health officials have been warning us of a possible bird flu outbreak following the upcoming bird migration season. A strong push to prepare schools has taken center stage.

The nation’s schools, recognized incubators of respiratory diseases among children, are being told to plan for the possibility of an outbreak of bird flu.

Federal health leaders say it is not alarmist or premature for schools to make preparations, such as finding ways to teach kids even if they’ve all been sent home.

School boards and superintendents have gotten used to emergency planning for student violence, terrorism or severe weather. Pandemic preparation, though, is a new one.

They have a lot to think over, top government officials said Tuesday. Read the complete story on CNN.com.

When most television sitcoms and teen movies portray social outcasts, they usually show them excelling in school despite the public peer rejection they endure in the hallways and lunchrooms of America’s high schools. In reality, those teens are not excelling, and peer rejection is no laughing matter.

The Washington Post reports that researchers who followed 380 Midwestern children from the ages of 5 to 11 found that those who were chronically rejected by their classmates were more likely to withdraw from school activities and scored lower on standardized tests than their more popular peers.

“We’re talking about kids whose classmates don’t let them sit with them in the cafeteria,” said lead researcher Eric S. Buhs, an assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “This is what happens when a whole group demonstrates, ‘We don’t want you around.’ ”

Peer-group rejection, Buhs and his co-authors report in a study funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, starts as early as kindergarten. It appears to affect boys and girls equally. And it often triggers a vicious circle that can cause long-term psychological damage and impair a child’s academic performance.
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