If the permission slip allowed high school juniors and seniors to participate in the running of the bulls, the intense scrutiny would make sense.

Instead, an area teacher who has chaperoned trips to Spain for 20 years has been placed under the microscope by some law enforcement authorities for asking parents to decide whether their sons and daughters will be allowed to drink in her presence while in Spain. There is no legal drinking age in Spain.

Signing the permission slip, which actually is required by the educational tour company, is not an endorsement to let teens party with Mrs. Ehlers until they puke. This is about drinking a glass of wine or beer as is common in the culture being visited. It’s perfectly legal.

And parents can say no if they don’t want their teens to partake.

Although Sue Ehlers is a teacher with the Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial School District, this is not a school trip. So the argument the school district is endorsing behavior that is illegal back home doesn’t hold water. Actually, Principal Linda Isebrand’s daughter went on the trip a few years ago. The principal told a TV station she thought children should be educated about situations involving alcohol and be given opportunities to see how things really should be.

No one is saying there aren’t drinking problems in Spain, but Ehlers knows from experience it’s not normal there for young people to drink until they’re throwing up on their friends’ shoes.

The attention on high-risk drinking in our area has no doubt helped push this longtime trip arrangement into the spotlight. In the last year several young adults have died in connection with high-risk drinking. We have been supportive of the community’s progress in examining society’s misuse of alcohol and education about it. But holding up this trip as an example of bad judgment is missing the mark. Many parents would much rather have their 17-year-old legally drink a glass of wine in the company of an adult than attend a kegger with friends in a cornfield.

Although concern about the Spanish trip is a pumped-up controversy — no angry crowd of parents is publicly complaining about the program — this is an opportunity for parents, kids and community members to talk about the issue of being responsible when it comes to drinking. It’s ignoring reality to think that all young people will wait until age 21 to drink.

Unlike many young drinkers, the local students on the trips to Spain are not drinking to excess. If they break the rule of drinking anywhere other than in the presence of Ehlers, they are sent home.

Controlled, responsible and accountable for rule violations. That’s the formula for a successful program.