DRUG TESTING YES; 'ZERO TOLERANCE' NO

Two other Gulf Shores High students were expelled this year under
similar circumstances. One went to an alternative school and later
returned to the school, and the other obtained a GED.

Other recent episodes at Loxley Elementary School and Citronelle High
School involving students caught with either drugs or alcohol have
intensified the local debate over zero tolerance policies.

Critics say the policies demonstrate a lack of common sense and good
judgment, unfairly tarnishing otherwise good students for a first
mistake. About 60 percent of those surveyed disagreed with Hammock's
expulsion, and roughly the same number said such drug-related
incidents should be settled on a case-by-case basis.

Share your education concerns in the forum

Public distrust

Nicholls suggested that zero-tolerance policies, like mandatory
sentencing laws, are popular because many in the public don't trust
officials to apply the rules fairly.

"Then we find, conversely, that the inflexible application results in
injustice," he said. "We can't have our cake and eat it, too."

Rules in Baldwin and Mobile do allow some flexibility over whether
students are suspended or expelled. Officials also must meet
constitutional due process and equal protection requirements, as
upheld by a federal judge in the Hammock case.

Meanwhile, about three quarters of those surveyed agree students in
public and private schools should be subject to random drug testing.
Support for drug testing climbs 20 percent higher when it comes to
school teachers, principals, bus drivers and administrators.

"I think the public wants to make sure the people dealing with their
children are themselves drug free, and that's a reasonable
expectation," said Bradley Byrne, a state Board of Education member
who represents Mobile and Baldwin counties.

Now, bus drivers on each side of Mobile Bay are tested for drugs and
alcohol. A new proposal in Mobile County could bring pre-employment
drug screens to the state's largest district. No such plans are under
consideration in Baldwin.

Though some officials have suggested the idea, public school students
in Mobile and Baldwin are not tested for drugs.

The U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for drug screening five years
ago when it allowed such testing for students involved with
extracurricular activities. Today, in Texas, the American Civil
Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against a public school system
that enacted a mandatory drug screen that includes the suspension of
students who refuse to take the test.

The ACLU's Alabama office could not be reached for comment Thursday
and Friday.

Hammock voluntarily took a drug test from a doctor one week after the
marijuana was found in her car which showed she had no illegal
substances in her system, according to court records. Her mother, Jude
Hammock, said that she personally had tested her daughter on the day
the incident happened and again two days later. The test by the doctor
was the third test Hammock passed, Jude Hammock said.

But school officials said the issue was possession - not use - of the
drug.

Drug policies

Alabama's 128 public school districts are required to have written
anti-drug policies, and most have adopted "zero-tolerance" rules,
officials said.

"We try to leave flexibility of these policies to the local boards,"
Byrne said. "They need to apply them and decide what is best."

This fall, McGill-Toolen High School will begin testing students and
faculty members. Similar policies are under more consideration at
other private schools in the area.

The Mobile Register-USA survey of 408 adults reflected the relative
population of Mobile and Baldwin counties, but made no distinction
whether those who answered have school-age children. Nicholls put the
margin of error of the poll at plus or minus 5 percentage points at
the 95 percent confidence level. This means that there is a 95 percent
probability that the results are within 5 percentage points of the
results that would have been obtained from a survey of the entire
population of Mobile and Baldwin counties.