Pubdate: Wed, 08 Feb 2006 Source: Daily Press (Newport News,VA) Copyright: 2006 The Daily Press Contact: http://www.dailypress.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/585 Author: Laura Mccandlish Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Test) W-JCC SCHOOL BOARD HALTS VOTE ON RANDOM DRUG TESTS The Initiative, Set for a March 7 Decision, Would Affect About 1,000 Students at Each High School. WILLIAMSBURG -- Five of seven Williamsburg-James City County School Board members objected when one urged the board to move ahead to vote on approving the superintendent's random student drug testing proposal Tuesday night. School Superintendent Gary Mathews recommended last week that high schools randomly drug test all students who participate in extra-curricular activities or obtain permits to park their cars on campus. That would equal approximately 1,000 students at each W-JCC high school - about two-thirds of the student body, according to Steve Chantry, W-JCC's director of student services. Ron Vaught, the Stonehouse School Board member, called on the board to swiftly vote on the drug testing policy Tuesday night, even though the vote isn't scheduled until the March 7 meeting. "None of this is new to us," Vaught said. "Once again, we've been provided with the statistics about the need for this program. Most importantly, we heard from our students that it is something they would like to be a part of the W-JCC school system." However, when students and parents were surveyed in the last year and a half, no clear majority was reached. In a communitywide survey, 53 percent of responders favored testing, 30 percent were opposed and 17 percent were undecided. In their pitch to the School Board, Chantry and Mathews stressed anecdotal evidence that random drug testing is successful, admitting "that empirical evidence that denotes the effectiveness of random student drug testing is difficult to find." Chantry and Mathews modeled their program after one in the Hunterdon, N.J., public schools - which was suspended for two years but then upheld by the New Jersey Supreme Court in 2003. The four public school districts that currently use drug testing in Virginia only target students involved in athletics or extracurricular activities, which would make the W-JCC proposal the most sweeping in the state. Board member John Alewynse worried that with all the concerns surrounding the drug testing issue, it might not solve the larger school drug problem and presented an invasion of privacy. "It's not a black and white issue - it's not a question of whether we care or don't," said Alewynse. "It's not an either/or issue and does us no good to set this example for our kids or community-at-large, to reduce our concerns to simplistic cliches. Just because something has been declared legal doesn't mean that it is right." Given Mathews' emphasis on data-driven research and decisions this school year, Alewynse insisted that if random student drug testing is approved but later fails valid benchmarks, it should be discontinued. Board member Mary Ann Maimone worried about breaches in confidentiality and equity issues for lower-income students who couldn't pay for a new test if falsely tested positive. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake