We want your Pee!

Teachers in Hawaii are up in arms over their contract negotiations. Anybody who is familiar with the education system will realize that this is nothing new. But Hawaii has added a new twist to their contract. They are offering the teachers a juicy 4% per year raise. If the teachers agree to mandatory drug testing.

This has lead to a predictable reaction. Some teachers, desparate for a pay raise, are lining up to hand over their pee (and their fourth ammendment rights). After all, the only people that object to drug testing are drug users with something to hide! It's not as if urine can reveal a lot of personal information about a person, such as pregnancy or medical conditions. It's not as if drug testing is costly and ineffective. Besides, won't someone please think of the children?

Although hotly debated, the opposition to this costly intrusion of the civil rights of teachers is far from unanimous.

"It's hard to vote against your paycheck, and that's one of the things a lot of people are really upset about," Rohr said.

Governor Lingle's strategy of bribing the teachers appears to be very effective. I am happy to report that there are some very unhappy teachers opposing drug testing.

Robert Dircks, principal at Hilo High School, said some of his staff believe the drug testing is evidence of a "sellout" of teachers' rights by the Hawaii State Teachers Association, while other teachers are comfortable with drug testing and want the 8 percent raises and the 3 percent salary step increase being offered in the two-year package.

Dircks, who won't be covered by the proposed contract, said he will be glad when today's vote is over.

"I'm trying to act as a referee here, but when it starts impacting instruction, I have a problem with that, and emotions are so high that the kids are feeling it, and something's got to give here," he said.

Deborah Lynn Dickerson, a veteran counselor at Keonepoko Elementary School in Puna on the Big Island, said Gov. Linda Lingle's demand for the drug-testing program treats teachers as if they were parolees subjected to mandatory testing after they are released from prison.

"I don't want it in my contract. I don't want to have my constitutional rights taken away in exchange for what I consider a piddly raise in the beginning," Dickerson said. "We have a right to be treated as professionals."