Pubdate: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 Source: Athens News, The (OH) Copyright: 2005, Athens News Contact: http://www.athensnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1603 Author: Robert Rhyan Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05.n1064.a03.html DRUG-TESTING POLICY AT ALEXANDER RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT PROCESS I appreciated the letter published in your paper on June 29 by Robert Wiley, who was able to express many of the same thoughts and concerns that I share about the Alexander School Board's 4-1 vote at their June meeting to implement a random urine drug-testing policy for students wishing to participate in extracurricular sports or who wish to obtain a school parking permit. Briefly, those concerns include: 1) Urine tests are a violation of personal privacy and thus a violation of the Fourth Amendment of our Constitution. 2) The possibility exists of obtaining false-positive urine test results. If this occurs, an innocent student's future in sports and driving privileges would be jeopardized, and he or she would suffer untold stress and mental anguish as well. 3.) The policy seems to indicate that the cost of these tests will be the responsibility of the persons wishing to obtain parking permits and possibly of those wishing to participate in extracurricular sports/cheerleading. This to me was not clear in the policy upon my review of it. The point is that the school board is not going to pay for these tests, and is thus mandating a policy that will require the students or parents to come up with another household budget item in times that most all families are on very tight budgets already. What bothers me the most about this entire Alexander drug-testing policy decision is the swiftness with which it occurred. It started as the brain child of a few individuals sometime in the latter part of 2004; then showed up as a presentation by a drug lab in December 2004; then formation of a policy development committee in early 2005; then to development of a draft policy (not sure when this occurred); then to a final draft policy sometime in May (my best guess); then to the final reading and vote taken at a June board meeting. To my knowledge, the proposed policy was never printed in the local newspapers; no public service announcements as to the availability of the policy to be obtained or reviewed was given; and no mailings were sent out to the parents, students, teachers or voters of the district as to the policy being considered by the board. This failure to inform the voters, parents, students and teachers of the school district of the proposed drug-testing policy and thereby not allowing them adequate time for review and comment of an issue of this importance demonstrates an arrogance and abusive use of the powers vested in these elected officials. Robert Rhyan Alexander School District parent and registered voter Lee Township - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin