Baltimore County’s former top drug czar criticized officials at Loyola Blakefield following a series of stories in The Examiner that revealed the school failed to call police after recently finding drugs in a student’s locker.
“We’ve always instructed school systems that whatever you find — any substance, including alcohol — turn it over to the police,” said Michael Gimbel, who was Baltimore County’s “drug czar” for 23 years and is now Director of Substance Abuse Education at Sheppard Pratt. “When you take the drugs and flush them down the toilet, it sends kids the message that they just beat the system.”
Several parents with first-hand knowledge of a locker search that led to the discovery of drugs told The Examiner that police were not called and the student was expelled immediately. There have been at least four incidents recently where students were either asked to withdraw or expelled because of drug-related offenses.
Gimbel said he has always emphasized the need to report students’ possession of drugs to police, even in private schools. If a school acts as the sole disciplinarian, they are forced to make some determinations that should be left to police, Gimbel said. The school is left judging the severity of crimes, including what counts as possession or intent to distribute, he said.
The Parents’ Council of Greater Baltimore, an organization of parent representatives from 32 independent schools — a sort of PTA for Baltimore’s private schools, has been working with Gimbel to refine and standardize disciplinary procedures among its members, said council President Kathleen Lauman.
Gimbel recommended to the Parents’ Council that private schools adopt a policy like the one he created for Baltimore County public schools, where students caught with drugs are reported to police, given short suspensions and put through rigorous counseling and education programs.
While the proposed punishment might be more lenient than some private schools’ zero-tolerance policies, having to deal with police would send a clearer message to students about the consequences of their actions, he said.
Statewide, public schools are required to have some consequences for students caught with drugs or alcohol, said Maryland State Department of Education spokesman Bill Reinhard. The exact consequences are up to each school system, but most drug searches and discipline for illegal activities involve police officers assigned to the schools, Reinhard said.
