Upon returning from a leave for lunch, an unnamed student claims to have been greeted by accusations of drug use based on his smell, and then to his further surprise — suspension.

“I went out with my friends at lunch time, and some of them were smoking in the car. I came back (to school) and I got stopped going into the lunchroom because I guess I had a distinctive smell to me,” the unnamed source said. “They took me in and I kind of argued with them first, but they basically said I was suspended for three days. They found nothing (in my backpack), it was just the smell.”

According to Johnson-Nixon, in order to prove student drug use, Park faculty first address observable behavior of a suspected student and then proceeds with backpack searches.

“(Suspicion of drug use) is smell or appearance of students’ eyes. We smell a student’s fingers to see if there has been any use of marijuana,” Johnson-Nixon said. “If we see any erratic behavior, those things out of the ordinary for schools, we continue with the investigation (in) that we’ll ask you to look through your backpack to see if you have any contraband, any marijuana, or any things used in that,” Johnson-Nixon said.

Freshman Mohammad Azem said he thinks suspension is justified if a student smells like marijuana.  

“Well I mean if you smelled like weed then you probably smoked weed. I guess it’s reasonable to get suspended for it,” Azem said.

Johnson-Nixon said Park brings in an agency with search dogs that is allowed to search any vehicle parked on school property and to conduct locker searches.

“We have an agency that comes with a dog that checks the parking lot. When a dog gets a hit on the car we go to the student and we ask them permission to search their car. We ask because that’s the polite thing to do, we technically don’t need their permission,” Johnson-Nixon said.

Senior Chloe Schaehrer said she disagrees with pulling kids out of class after car searches because there is often nothing found in the car.

“I think it’s funny when they pull kids out of class and they definitely don’t have anything in their car,” Schaehrer said. “I don’t think you should be pulling kids out of class because that is interrupting their education and I think they should be sure that they car definitely has something in it before they pull a kid out of class.”

The unnamed source said he believes it is unfair how the school’s policies allows suspension solely from observable characteristics.

“I think it’s wrong. I don’t think it’s right that they can suspend me just for a smell, especially if they didn’t find anything,” the unnamed source said.

Johnson-Nixon said once a student returns to school after a suspension, Park works to make further help accessible to improve their future quality of life.

“The way we look at is if the student is going to get high before they come to school or get high while they’re during school too, they have a problem. They need some type of help,” Johnson-Nixon said. “Our goal is we’d much rather help our students so we can have a healthy student population because we want to make sure everyone’s  safe and everything is right.”

Johnson-Nixon declined to comment about the unnamed student’s situation.