DRUG TESTING BAD STRATEGY IN HASD'S WAR ON DRUGS

DRUG TESTING OF Hazleton School District athletes is a bad idea for
both practical and ethical reasons.

Right now the district is permitted to test for steroid use among
athletes, but Superintendent Geraldine Shepperson is hoping to expand
the testing to include drugs - prescription and illegal.

Because the law does not permit random drug testing of the student
body in general - only "special" categories such as athletes - there
is glaring discrimination and incompleteness in the school drug policy
and a built-in unfairness to testing the district's athletes for
drugs. Granted, this a practical failure that many districts choose to
live with. Hazleton should not make that choice.

What makes drug testing at the Hazleton Area School District so
distasteful is the fact that athletes in the district already sign a
pledge not to use drugs. To have them then subjected to random tests,
in effect, dishonors the honor system established by the pledge.

That example is not the only, nor the most troubling, potential
violation of trust. Last October a 12-year-old from Freeland was
arrested for selling drugs in school. He was apprehended thanks to
information provided in confidence by students. Their willingness to
turn in their classmate could only have been achieved because a level
of trust existed between the students and the faculty and
administration. Instituting drug tests, singling out a group of
innocent and largely trustworthy students, will undermine the faith
and goodwill that individual teachers and administrators within the
district have worked so hard to nurture. That erosion of trust seems
too dangerous to risk.

Drugs are a hateful, deadly and destructive force in our schools, but
there are more effective, equitable and honorable ways of coping than
random drug tests. Certainly, education about the dangers of drugs and
greater diligence on the part of school security in identifying
dealers and users are the first lines of defense. But the most potent
weapon is a student body that trusts its school enough to alert
teachers and administrators of drug abuse within its ranks.

A policy that singles out a specific segment of the school population
for testing, after that group has vowed not to use drugs, will rob the
Hazleton Area School District of its best weapon and its credibility.