TAHOE TRUCKEE SCHOOL BOARD WEIGHS DRUG TEST ISSUE

TRUCKEE - After hearing from students, educators and a doctor during its
Sept. 21 meeting, the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District Board of
Trustees began to back away from a proposal calling for mandatory random
drug testing of student athletes.

"What I'm hearing is that this isn't going to work very well," said board
member Suzanne Prouty after nearly two hours of public discussion.

The board initially delayed discussion of the subject because Jim Abbott,
assistant superintendent, had invited late-arriving guests who were to give
some insight into the issue. Once Abbott's panel - which included
principals, coaches, a medical professional and a county education employee
- - had arrived, their presentations portrayed the proposed drug testing as
financially taxing, socially questionable and "barely legal."

"Personally, I'm not in favor of it," Dr. Ed Heneveld, an emergency room
physician at Tahoe Forest Hospital said of the testing. "There's some
benefit, but then you weigh cost verses benefit, appropriateness verses
benefit, community support verses benefit."

A representative from the Placer County Department of Education, Tad Kitada,
told the board that he could not find sufficient data regarding student drug
testing because the concept is relatively new; he said he had yet to locate
a school in California that had instituted a mandatory testing policy.

The school district is basing its push for drug testing on the findings of a
recent survey. The California Healthy Kids Survey, an anonymous survey
issued by the state's Department of Education, showed that student's within
the district had an above average appetite for alcohol and drugs.
Participation in the survey required written permission from students'
parents; about half the students in the district did not take the survey.

The meeting also saw students speak out against the proposed policy. Some
students felt it was unfair to test only athletes.

"It should be all the students, all the coaches, all the staff," said Katie
Kyler, a senior at North Tahoe High School. "No one should be excluded."

Kitada explained that it was against the law to impose mandatory drug
testing on students because it would be considered a search (which requires
probable cause), but that the United States Supreme Court had cleared the
way for testing athletes in 1995.

"Student athletes go in knowing they're not going to have the same level of
privacy as other students," Kitada said.

Mark Martinez, a student-journalist with Tahoe-Truckee High School's
newspaper, The Wolverine, told the board he had been interviewing classmates
about the possibility of drug testing and the response had been less than
positive.

"A lot of kids will quit the team and keep doing the drug," Martinez said,
suggesting the boards' proposal could blow up in their face.

The strongest show of support for the implementation of such a policy came
from North Tahoe High School's principal, Rod Wallace. He said he thought
the testing would curb the area's drug problem among students, and that the
procedure would get eventual support from the community.

"I think the positives outweigh the negatives," Wallace told the board,
explaining that the potential of being tested might dissuade drug use. "It
gives the kids another chance to say no. It takes the pressure off the
kids."

Board member Mel Cone suggested that efforts focused on athletes would
positively affect the entire student body. Did athletes, he asked, serve as
moral-guideposts for their peers?

"Who do you look up to?" Cone asked one Truckee student.

"I don't think we have role models in our school. We're all around the same
age," answered 12th-grader David Brooks. "I'm not gonna look up to someone
in my grade."

Brooks also echoed Martinez when he told the board that drug testing would
more likely deter students from participating in sports than from
experimenting with drugs.

"I can see where you guys are coming from with this, but eventually...,"
Brooks paused, "... you're not gonna have any sports teams."

Besides the apparent lack of support being shown for drug testing, the board
was also discouraged from implementing the policy after finding out the
tests would do little to flesh-out alcohol use.

"I thought we would be targeting kids who are drinking heavily," Prouty
said.

By the end of the night, members of the board decided more information on
the effectiveness of drug testing needed to be gathered. Prouty also said
she would like to see "community buy-in" before supporting the policy.

Board member Cone seemed to capture the night's collective sentiment best
during his closing comments: "Individuals cannot control other individuals,
they can only control themselves. That's my philosophy."