SCHOOL BOARD SAYS NO TO RANDOM DRUG TESTS

ELFRIDA - The Valley Union school board on Tuesday evening narrowly
defeated a proposed random drug testing plan.

The board voted 3-2, with board President Mary Appel and board members
Sue Makin and Mark Landwerlan voting against the proposal. Board
members Richard Searle and Paul White voted for the plan.

Richard Humphries, a retired Arizona Department of Public Safety
nacotics agent who had a daughter who admitted to using marijuana
while attending the school, has been working for about a year to put
the proposal forward to implement random drug and alcohol testing of
students involved in school-sponsored extracurricular activities,
something modeled after a program in Willcox.

For students to participate in the random drug testing, parents would
have had to sign a consent form, allowing their children to be tested.
If the parent didn't sign the form, the students would be banned from
participating in extracurricular activities.

Extracurricular activities, for the purpose of the proposed program,
would have included students who ride the bus to and from school, as
well as kids who drive themselves - that would mean about 98 percent
of the student population at the 180-student high school could be
tested. To ensure the testing is random, students involved in
activities would have been assigned a number and a computer would be
used to pick students to test based solely on the numbers.

If a student tested positive for drugs, the student would have been
banned from participating in extracurricular activities and required
to seek counseling for drug use.

Appel said she voted against the measure because she believes the
district's revised drug policy, with enforcement, will help. The first
reading of the district's revised drug policy was on Tuesday night.

Appel said she had been on the fence about the proposal, but the fact
that bus privileges for those who failed a drug test would have been
revoked was one of the main reasons she was against it.

Searle and White said Valley Union High School does have a drug
problem and the plan would have given students a reason to say "no" to
peer pressure.

They agreed other measures would have been taken, such as a support
system, if the plan had been approved.