DRUG TEST REVISIONS COULD SWING VOTE JAMES CITY - Tuesday's contentious public hearing on student drug testing focused on civil liberties. Ten of 12 speakers were opposed, calling it an invasion of privacy and ineffective. During the School Board work session later that night, the discussion took a turn. Rather than debating drug testing at the high schools, School Board members debated how to do so. A compromise arose that could ease passage. School Board member Joe Fuentes offered a list of amendments to better protect student confidentiality and to widen the prevention component. "I will not close my eyes and vote for a policy that I feel is flawed," Fuentes said, referring to the lack of legal protection. "It never gets fixed later, so we either do it right the first time or I don't want to be a part of it." Among the board, Ron Vaught has advocated drug testing, and now Fuentes would support it if his amendments pass. John Alewynse and Elise Emanuel are flatly opposed. That leaves chair Denise Koch, vice chair Mary Ann Maimone and Ruth Larson as the swing votes. Their efforts to tweak the policy suggest they are leaning toward testing. Alewynse and Emanuel are still opposed, but have worked with the others to reshape and refine the policy. In making his revisions, Fuentes called on his sister, Patricia Fuentes Mulqueen, who is a former public defender and now an assistant district attorney in Pennsylvania, to change the policy. * Random drug testing would be part of a "multi-faceted approach" to drug prevention. His colleagues expressed interest in creating a task force to discuss other prevention initiatives, of which random testing would be "just one tool." * The testing procedure would go before the School Board for regular review, and the policy would be re-evaluated after two years. * The testing pool would be enlarged up to 15% from 10%. * Administrators would be informed of test results "on a need-to-know basis" to ensure privacy. The School Board agreed that the principal and athletic director are the only staff members who would need to be informed of a positive test. The sponsor of an activity would only be told that a student is ineligible to participate for a certain amount of time. * Students who refuse to take a drug test would not be presumed guilty, but instead would merely be considered "in violation of the drug-testing policy." The punishment for refusal to take the test would be the same as that for a positive test, but Fuentes pointed out that it is "patently unfair to assume [they would test] positive." * Notification of test results would not be left on a home answering machine or with a non-guardian. * Under no circumstances would test results be released to law enforcement. Fuentes said that release of test results to police would be a constitutional violation. The School Board was very receptive to Fuentes' changes. Alewynse said he could better tolerate Fuentes' amendments to the policy. "If I end up having to live with this, and my opposition has not changed, I'd rather live with Fuentes' rules than the ones that he worked with," Alewynse said. After lengthy debate, School Board members agreed to three additional amendments to the proposal: * Drug test records would be destroyed after the student graduates or transfers out of school. * At school expense, parents could request a retest with a new specimen at the lab of their choice within 24 hours. * Only competitive extracurriculars would be tested. Clubs that compete against other schools, such as Model United Nations and Mock Trial, would be part of the testing pool. Non-competitive clubs, such as honor societies and language clubs, would not be tested. Larson spearheaded removal of general extracurriculars from the policy. She liked the idea of testing parking-permit holders because of safety concerns, and she did not object to testing athletes since there are health concerns if a student becomes overexerted while on drugs. She said testing was less merited for after-school activities and asked that the policy be modified to remove extracurriculars. Mathews advised the School Board that sports and competitive extracurriculars were the drug-testing activities specifically upheld by the Supreme Court. Therefore, these activities would be the most "airtight" against lawsuits. School Board members opted to jettison non-competitive extracurriculars from the proposal, but retained the right to test parking-permit holders.
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