WAHKIAKUM SCHOOL CHIEF LAMENTS LOSS OF DRUG TESTS

Wahkiakum School Superintendent Bob Garrett says the drug testing
policy the state Supreme Court struck down Thursday was helping keep
students clean.

"Kids were telling us the policy's working," Garrett said Monday.
"Because of the policy, they were using less or not using at all."

The state's high court ruled that random, or suspicionless, testing of
student athletes violates personal freedoms protected by the
Washington Constitution. The 9-0 ruling overturned a 2006 Wahkiakum
County Superior Court decision in which Judge Douglas E. Goelz ruled
the testing policy was justified because drug use was a "real and
serious threat" to the school.

Since the 2007-08 school year started, two students randomly selected
tested positive for drug use, Garrett said. Student athletes who test
positive for substance abuse miss playing time and get referred to
counseling.

The district used the random drug testing in partnership with other
drug prevention programs, Garrett said. He said school officials
haven't decided whether to adopt new programs in place of the rejected
policy.

"It is interesting as you read the different justices' opinions about
this decision," Garrett said. "We didn't get a clear-cut, definitive
decision."

There were three separate concurring opinions, and at least one
justice said random suspicionless drug testing should be OK under
"carefully defined circumstances."

Also, the opinions didn't rule out other forms of testing, including
saliva tests, Garrett said. The opinions said Wahkiakum's policy is
wrong, but they did not describe a drug testing policy that would pass
constitutional review, he added.

The school district adopted the policy in October 1999, saying
attempts to curb widespread drug use through other intervention
programs weren't working. In 1998, 42 percent of the district's high
school seniors surveyed said they had used illegal drugs. In its first
full year of use, six randomly tested students checked positive for
drugs, Garrett said.

However, Wahkiakum parents Paul and Sharon Schneider and Hans and
Katherine York sued over the testing policy, and their case was taken
up by the American Civil Liberties Union. As a result, the district
suspended the testing program in 2001, resuming it only after the
favorable 2006 lower court decision.

A handful of public schools across the state had adopted similar drug
testing rules, and other school districts were awaiting the Supreme
Court's decision before adopting similar policies, according to the
ACLU.

Garrett on Monday also took issue with one of the studies the ACLU
highlighted as showing random drug testing doesn't work. The study in
question, conducted by Oregon Health & Science University last year,
said random drug testing drives students to rebel or use harder drugs
that leave their systems faster.

Garrett said the study did not offer consequences to students beyond
parental notification, such as the loss of sports playing time, as
Wahkiakum's policy did.

"We weren't doing what (the OHSU) test was doing," Garrett said.
"That's not comparing apples to apples. . We do believe (the policy)
was effective."