Student athletes are unfairly targeted by a Carroll policy in which they can be forced off a team if they?re with others using drugs or alcohol, parents say, even if they?re caught with neither.
“There?s a lot of concern if you?re an athlete you get tagged, and if you?re not, nothing happens to you,” said Mary Alexander, Parent-Teacher-Student Association president at South Carroll High School.
“It?s more a matter of keeping it fair across the board, and I think that?s a major point of concern.”
Carroll?s policy covers not only participation in sports but all extracurricular activities.
Only a handful of counties in Maryland have that policy, and Carroll Superintendent Charles Ecker has formed a committee of parents and schools officials to gather public opinion and determine if it is too strict, said Dana Falls, Carroll?s student services director and head of the committee.
Alexander said the policy takes on too much of parents? responsibilities and encourages student athletes to drink at parties because if they are caught and haven?t been drinking, they still get in trouble.
“I can see both signs of the coin, but I think we need more parent involvement,” Alexander said. “I have three children and, yes, I?d like to know if my children are at a party where there?s alcohol. But I?d also like to know how it got there, and that doesn?t seem to be part of the equation.”
The four other Baltimore metropolitan counties do not have countywide policies to bar students from extracurricular activities unless they have drugs or alcohol.
The committee is formed every few years, but public input was scarce last time, Falls said.
The committee will reportto Ecker by May 15 after two public hearings.
