STATE TEACHERS' GROUP SUES OVER RANDOM DRUG TEST POLICY

ROBBINSVILLE -- A state teachers' group has sued the Graham County
school system, a move that could block the system's plans to randomly
drug test all employees beginning in July.

The N.C. Association of Educators' lawsuit on behalf of Robbinsville
High School Spanish teacher Susan Jones says the "arbitrary and
irrational" policy violates state constitutional principles against
discrimination and searches without evidence.

"It's a poor use of money in a very poor county," Jones said. "There
is no drug problem with the faculty in our school." School officials
and the state teachers' association believe the district's plan to
randomly test its 250 employees for illegal drugs is the first of its
kind in the state.

Depositions of school board members are set for today. The law The
board knew when it voted to create the policy that it could be a "test
case" for legal challenges, Superintendent Rick Davis said. Federal
law allows private employers to test any of their employees, but
governments can only test employees suspected of drug use or those
with "safety sensitive" jobs. School bus drivers, for example, have
long been subject to the tests.

The district, following the lead of Graham County government,
classified all its employees as safety sensitive.

That argument by school districts has satisfied some federal courts,
said professor Bob Joyce, a lawyer on the faculty of the UNC Chapel
Hill School of Government.

"The idea being," he said, "that teachers have the power and authority
to tell kids what to do, and teachers can tell kids to do dangerous
things if they're impaired." The teachers' association's attorney
could not be reached for comment Wednesday or Thursday.

The school board voted 4-1 in December for the policy. The district
plans to randomly test a quarter of its employees four times a year,
Davis said. At $29.45 per test, the school district's annual bill
would total more than $7,300.

Davis said the added safety is worth the legal battle, even though he
knows of no employee tested under the district's old policy based on
suspicion of drug use. "The board wanted to be proactive in this
situation," he said, "and to maintain a safe and drug-free environment
for the students and employees of the school system." County
commissioners required random tests for all employees, then asked the
school board to follow their lead, said Dirk Cody, who was on the
commission when it created the policy.

Cody said the move was not prompted by a specific incident or
employee. "You know, I understand about the Fourth Amendment and I
understand that some people have a feeling that 'I've been here all
these years, and I wouldn't be doing drugs,'" said Cody, who doubts
the drug policy caused the defeat of his re-election bid. "If
everybody's just kind of in the same pool, then everybody gets treated
equally." Testing elsewhere State Rep. Roger West, a Republican who
represents Graham County, said the state should consider such random
drug testing for all its schools. For some districts, like the
17,000-employee Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, that would be costly.

But district officials are considering random drug testing after a
teacher was charged last week with having heroin, spokeswoman Tahira
Stalberte said. Districts typically submit job applicants to drug
tests. That's a sufficient safety precaution for Haywood County
Schools, Associate Superintendent Bill Nolte said.

The district also tests employees who suffer on-the-job injuries and
those with commercial drivers' licenses, including Nolte. And about
half its students, including drivers and participants in
extracurricular activities, face drug tests under a year-old policy.

Nolte welcomed the possibility of a court ruling on random drug
testing. "It's really nice when case law's in place," he said. "That
way we're not guessing about whether anything we do is going to hold
up in court."