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In the latest case of probably well-intentioned but spectacularly bone-headed public policy, officials at Swampscott High School recently ordered parents to attend a "mandatory" meeting on drug and alcohol abuse. Failure by parents to attend could result in their children being barred from sports and other extracurricular activities.

A program that keeps kids out of extracurricular activities if their parents have not attended a “mandatory” meeting and signed a contract needs to be reconsidered.

Among other things, such an approach is likely to have unintended consequences. Studies show that students who take part in extracurricular activities are less likely to use drugs and alcohol, so it is a terrible idea to set up obstacles to kids taking part in those programs.

School officials are not allowed to punish students for their parents’ failings. It is beyond the authority of a school system to order parents to attend a meeting and then punish the students if they fail to show up. It’s what some lawyers would call “arbitrary and capricious” and unreasonable, and what the rest of us call counterproductive.

Superintendent Lynne Celli said parents with “a compelling reason’’ for not attending, such as work or sickness, can schedule a separate meeting with administrators. But she stressed that school officials “want everyone sitting there.’’




another gleaming example of the nanny-state we live in. the district absolutely has no leg to stand on. it's not enough to handle the issue of drugs and alcohol at home, now people are being ordered to handle it the way the school wants to handle it. is parental involvement important? sure it is. but we continue to force the majority of folks into things, based on the idea that a few parents are lazy and inattentive, and therefore all must be told how to raise their children.

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Who came up with this idea?!  Yeah, seems boneheaded to me too, Dod...

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it's a good thing my kid doesn't go there, cause i would go to their little meeting, but they probably wouldn't like what i had to say when i got there.