DRUG TEST FIGHT A RIGHTS ISSUE FOR MOM

Penn Parent Advocates Appeals Court Ruling

OSCEOLA -- Linda Petill describes herself as conservative.

Invitations to the 1988 Presidential Inaugural Ball and a visit to the
George Bush White House hang on her wall.

She served as campaign manager for Republican Doug Bernacchi's 1992 run for
Congress and for Rose Gordon's run for the state Senate.

But she has stood on the Revolutionary War battlefield at Yorktown, Va.,
and thought at length about the people who died in the name of freedom.

Petill is one of the parents who filed the lawsuit challenging the legality
of the Penn-Harris-Madison School Corp. drug testing policy.

The policy subjecting high school and middle school students involved in
extra-curricular activities to random drug testing was suspended Tuesday
after an Indiana Court of Appeals ruled a similar policy in a Kokomo school
district violated the Indiana Constitution.

Petill admits her position is not popular with school officials and some
parents but she is steadfast in her cause.

"I'm conservative, but this is too much. I just really believe in being free."

She believes requiring students to submit to drug testing in order to
participate in extra-curricular activities "is stomping on the rights of
students."

"Everyone has rights," Petill said. "When one thing (right) goes, everybody
accepts it. Then another one goes. That's how rights are taken away in
other countries."

Petill wants to make sure that never happens here.

She thinks school officials should be required to have probable cause to
believe children are taking drugs before subjecting them to a procedure
some students find humiliating.

Tiffany Petill, who is now a senior at Penn High School, thinks the school
should discipline students who come to school under the influence or break
school rules.

But she objects to law-abiding students being taken out of class for a
procedure she says many students feel is invasive and too personal.

"If you didn't do anything, why are you tested?" she said.

Students are required to disclose any medication they are taking, which is
a problem, Tiffany said, for girls who are taking birth control pills
without their parents' knowledge.

And parents' rights are also affected by random drug testing of students,
Linda Petill said.

Petill believes it's her responsibility as a parent to keep her children
from using drugs -- not the schools'.

"It's their (the schools') job to educate my kids," she said.

Petill said she knows how to test her own children for drug use and would
do so if she ever suspected them.

But she said she's never had any cause for concern and thinks it's her
responsibility to keep them clean.

She also believes the drug testing is not being handled fairly at Penn High
School.

Petill said neither of her daughters, or the other students listed as
plaintiffs in the lawsuit, have been tested. But some of her daughters'
friends have been tested as many as 10 times in one year.

Petill said her older daughter, Candace, now a sophomore at Ball State
University, was told she was subject to random drug testing at Penn because
she was participating in broadcast journalism activities, even though she
was graded and received credit for the class.

Ultimately, daughters and mother are afraid random drug testing of those in
extra-curricular activities will eventually lead to testing of all students
- -- a clear violation of rights, the courts have ruled.

Petill's lawsuit now rests in the hands of St. Joseph Superior Court Judge
George N. Beamer, who has yet to rule on the challenge.

Although the P-H-M policy was upheld by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of
Appeals, Petill hopes Beamer will take into account the Indiana Court of
Appeals ruling, which stemmed from a lawsuit involving the Northwestern
School Corp. in Kokomo.