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DELAWARE VALLEY BOARD REINSTATES DRUG TESTING POLICY

Judge's January Ruling Paves Way for School District to Bring Back the Practice

The Delaware Valley School board voted this week to reinstate its controversial drug testing policy effective immediately, and to double the number of students being tested monthly.

Students in grades 6-12 will be tested.

The policy was challenged in the Pike County Court of Common Pleas and banned in July 2011 through a temporary injunction after a family represented by the ACLU of Pennsylvania objected to the policy, calling it a violation of students' civil rights.

Random, suspicionless drug testing has been the district's policy since 1996 and it has been challenged twice in court.

The policy requires all students who drive to school or participate in any co-curricular activities to submit to a urine test.

Previously the test was administered to each student once when they joined an activity and then once a month, 5 percent of students in the pool marked for testing were randomly tested.

The board voted to end the initial testing at the beginning of the year or season and increasing monthly random testing to 10 percent of the students in the testing pool.  The board also added Oxycontin to the list of drugs to be screened in urine tests.

Random, suspicionless drug testing of the entire school population would be unconstitutional, but the district identified two large groups of students, those who participate in activities and those who drive to school.

In the court case, the district had to prove that the students in those groups are more likely to use drugs to justify the testing.

Pike County Judge Joseph Kameen ruled that the school made its case and in January ruled that the testing policy could be reinstated.