Pubdate: Sat, 22 Sep 2012
Source: Gadsden Times, The (AL)
Copyright: 2012 The Gadsden Times
Contact:  http://www.gadsdentimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1203
Author: Mary Pilon

MIDDLE SCHOOLERS SUBJECTED TO DRUG TESTING

MILFORD, Pa. - As a 12-year-old seventh-grader, Glenn and Kathy 
Kiederer's older daughter wanted to play sports at Delaware Valley 
Middle School here. She also wanted to join the scrapbooking club.

One day she took home a permission slip. It said that to participate 
in the club or any school sport, she would have to consent to drug testing.

"They were asking a 12-year-old to pee in a cup," Kathy Kiederer said.

"I have a problem with that. They're violating her right to privacy 
over scrapbooking? Sports?"

Olympic athletes must submit urine samples to prove they are not 
doping. The same is true for Tour de France cyclists, NFL players, 
college athletes and even some high school athletes.

Now, children in grades as low as middle school are being told that 
providing a urine sample is required to play sports or participate in 
extracurricular activities like drama and choir.

Such drug testing at the middle school level is confounding students 
and stirring objections from parents and proponents of civil liberties.

The Kiederers, whose two daughters are now in high school, are 
plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Delaware Valley School District, 
with the daughters identified only by their first initials, A. and M. 
The parents said mandatory drug testing was unnecessary and that it 
infringed on their daughters' rights.

For privacy reasons, they asked that their daughters' first names not 
be published.

A lawyer for the school district declined to comment, citing the 
pending litigation.

It is difficult to gauge how many middle schools conduct drug tests 
on students. States with middle schools that conduct drug testing 
include Florida, Alabama, Missouri, West Virginia, Arkansas, Ohio, 
New Jersey and Texas.

Some coaches, teachers and school administrators said drug-testing 
programs served as a deterrent for middle school students 
encountering drugs of all kinds, including steroids, marijuana and alcohol.

"We wanted to do it to create a general awareness of drug 
prevention," said Steve Klotz, assistant superintendent at Maryville 
School District in Missouri. "We're no different than any other 
community. We have kids who are making those decisions."

There are no known instances of a middle school student testing 
positive for performance-enhancing drugs like steroids or human 
growth hormone. The few positive results among middle school students 
have been attributed to marijuana, officials said, and even those 
cases are rare.

Maryville's drug-testing program, which includes most of its middle 
and high school students, begins this fall after officials spent 18 
months reviewing other programs in the state, Klotz said. In fall 
2011, Klotz said, the school board conducted a survey of parents, and 
72 percent said that a drug-testing program was necessary. The cost 
will be $5,000 to $7,000 a year and will come from the school's 
general operating budget.

"Drug testing is a multibillion-dollar industry," said Dr. Linn 
Goldberg, head of the Division of Health Promotion and Sports 
Medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University. "They go to 
these schools and say it's great. But do the schools actually look at 
the data? Schools don't know what to do."

Drug testing for high school athletes, which has been around for 
years, was deemed constitutional in a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. 
Some districts have expanded their drug-testing programs in recent 
years to include middle school students.

In 2003, the Department of Education started a program that offered 
federal money for drug testing in grades six through 12, and the last 
of the grants will be closed out this fall. The program, following 
the outlines of the Supreme Court decision, allowed testing for 
students who participated in school activities, or whose parents 
chose to enroll them.

In the 2004-05 school year, an estimated 14 percent of public school 
districts conducted some form of random drug testing, according to a 
Department of Education report. But middle school testing is not 
thoroughly tracked by officials.

The nature of drug-testing programs at the middle school level varies 
by school district. In general, an outside testing company conducts 
the tests under contract with school authorities. Students are 
generally given little, if any, advance notice and are pulled away 
from class and asked to urinate in a cup - unsupervised, to comply 
with privacy laws.

Specimens are sent to a laboratory, and parents and students are 
notified of any positive result. Some schools require a second test 
to confirm a positive result; in others, parents may request a 
challenge to a result, sometimes for a fee. Results are generally not 
shared with law enforcement.

Punishment for a positive test can range from a warning to removal 
from a sports team or an activity.

"It starts early with kids," said Matthew Franz, who owns the drug 
testing company Sport Safe based in Columbus, Ohio, and is a member 
of the Student Drug-Testing Coalition, an organization of 
drug-testing proponents. "You want to get in there and plant these 
seeds of what's out there and do prevention early. The 11th- and 
12th-graders, most of them have already made a choice. But the 
eighth-graders, they're still making decisions, and it helps if you 
give them that deterrent."

But some experts doubt the effectiveness of such testing.

"There's little evidence these programs work," Goldberg said. "Drug 
testing has never been shown to have a deterrent effect."

Despite the Supreme Court ruling in 1995, some districts have been 
challenged in lower courts.

The American Civil Liberties Union won a settlement last year relying 
on California's stricter state privacy laws that prevented the 
schools from conducting random drug testing for students in 
nonathletic activities absent a reasonable ground for suspicion. The 
district, in Redding, Calif., discontinued its program as part of the 
settlement.

Not all parents oppose testing of middle school students. Daniel 
Alef, the father of an eighth-grade swimmer in Santa Barbara, Calif., 
said he would support testing at his son's school.

"Kids today grow up too quickly and have access to way more 
information," he said. "But in the end, I think it goes back to the parents."

In Pennsylvania, the Kiederers are waiting as their case, filed by 
the civil liberties union in the Court of Common Pleas of Pike 
County, works through the legal system.

Last year, they won an injunction preventing the district from 
enforcing its policy and allowing their daughters to participate in 
extracurricular activities.

"They're losing their rights every day and you ask yourself, what are 
we teaching the kids?" Glenn Kiederer said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom