Pubdate: Mon, 11 Jul 2005
Source: Athens News, The (OH)
Section: Reader's Forum
Copyright: 2005, Athens News
Contact:  http://www.athensnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1603
Author:  Robert L. Wiley
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)

SCHOOL BOARD HASN'T ADDRESSED MORAL, ETHICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT DRUG TESTING

We hire or elect administrators like boards of education to carry out those 
things that we know need to be done, those day-to-day, month-to-month 
things that keep the school system functioning. We give them responsibility 
for such routine things as teacher salaries, bus routes and furnishings for 
renovated classrooms, and then rely upon them to use their best discretion 
and their wisdom and get the job done. They usually do it.

With so much to do to keep a household and job going, most of us do not 
take the time to show up at regular board meetings and give the board 
suggestions and feedback.

It is not surprising that they begin to feel and operate as if our input as 
constituents of the district is not needed; to believe that they know best 
about the education and the upbringing of our children.

As a result of this recognition and the words of Alexander School Board 
President David Kasler that, "Mr. Wiley was not at either of the meetings 
when the (drug) testing companies answered all those concerns," I stand 
chastised and repentant.

I am contrite.

Perhaps I'll do better in the future.

However, my failing to know that the drug testing companies were answering 
all my questions while I slept, and that the Alexander Local School 
District was so widely departing from its routine responsibilities and into 
the systematic invasion of personal liberties, is not completely my fault. 
Who could believe that anybody (such as a school board in a small community 
where everybody knows just about everybody) would not recognize a major 
departure from routine school business (such as it has taken by 
implementing this drug policy), and take greater efforts to let the 
district parents know what was going on very early in the rulemaking 
process, in order to obtain their informed consent.

The board should have worked a little harder to assure that involvement 
(unless they did not want us to know). It would have been easy and very 
cheap to send notes home with children announcing their intentions to 
evaluate this issue.

I am chilled by the implied meanings in Mr. Kasler's statement, "the 
testing companies answered all those concerns (emphasis mine)." This 
statement somewhat explains why an early version of the drug-testing policy 
obtained by another Alexander parent just before the final vote reads like 
an invitation to bid for drug-testing services.

There is a large and vigorous drug-testing industry that actively markets 
businesses and schools.

These companies send marketing representatives -- salesmen (not scientists, 
sociologists or ethicists) -- to schools to explain their laboratory 
capabilities (and do I vaguely hear Preston Foster from "The Music Man" 
staring up in the background?). These representatives can provide technical 
answers, allege high levels of accuracy, and generally demonstrate that the 
testing can be done. These private companies cannot, however, address 
questions of whether such testing should be done. Discussion by the 
drug-testing companies of the moral, ethical, social and practical issues 
surrounding non-suspicion drug testing in schools is not only far outside 
of their technical expertise; it is a conflict of interest for them to even 
try to address such questions.

If, as Mr. Kasler insists, "all the questions were answered by the drug 
companies," then the only questions he had must have been about laboratory 
protocols and testing procedures. Surely, he would not believe the drug 
companies that it is "OK" to do this. This means that he must have used his 
developed understandings of whether the drug testing could be done, to 
drive his decision that it should be done. At what point did he and the 
voting majority of the board address and resolve all of the moral, ethical 
and social questions?

Was there ever a discussion of need? The answers to these questions must be 
"never." He, and they, just did it! They checked with their lawyers, 
"Bricker & Eckler," to see if they could get away with it and just did it! 
This is an incredibly heavy-handed approach to public policy for an elected 
local school board.

Two other points made by Mr. Kasler deserve rebuttal.

First, Mr. Kasler minimizes the technical and false-positive difficulties 
associated with testing by his mention of the split-sample method.

This useful QA/QC technique tests the competency of the laboratory but does 
not address the mimicking problems caused by other legal drugs.

He also seems not to recognize that he is about to create records for 
students that may be outside of his control to conceal.

Several recent scientific studies find that drug-testing programs in 
schools are ineffective in achieving the primary objective of reducing 
overall drug use (for example: Ryoko, Y., L.D. Johnston and P.M. O'Malley, 
"Drug Testing in Schools: Policies, Practices, and Association with Student 
Drug Use." Institute for Social Research. University of Michigan. Ann 
Arbor, Mich., 2003).

Moreover (as cited in Jim Phillips' article), board member Fred Davis 
states that he did not "see a demand in the district's population for the 
policy." This feeling that a drug problem does not exist at a level that 
suggests the need for such an extreme measure as this drug-testing policy 
has been echoed by other school employees and parents in recent 
discussions. It is unclear why the majority of the school board has taken 
this action.

The board must be required to explain themselves before this policy is 
implemented. I do not believe that the board researched this issue before 
its action (except perhaps through its out-of-district, out-of-county law 
firm). This policy is simply someone's personal agenda and must be reversed.

Editor's note: Robert L. Wiley is a Lee Township resident and parent of an 
Alexander Local School District student.

He had another Reader's Forum on the same subject published on June 30. The 
NEWS limits letters or Reader's Forums from the same person to one per 
month, unless they are responding to direct criticism in these pages.

Today's opinion qualifies for that exception.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom