SV STUDENTS PROTEST DRUG POLICY

Demonstrators call tests unfair

Last week, David Pollock's mother voted for a new policy to begin drug
testing of student athletes in the Susquehanna Valley Central School
District.

But on Tuesday, the 16-year-old junior, who is an athlete and an honor
student, protested the policy by joining a student walkout at the high
school.

"Basically, it's an invasion of privacy," said Pollock, whose mother
Susan Pollock was one of six school board members who supported the
policy.

About 80 students, many of them athletes, demonstrated to show their
opposition to the plan, approved by the school board, to begin
mandatory drug testing of student athletes. Susquehanna Valley is the
first Southern Tier school district to adopt such a policy.

The students walked out of classes shortly after 10 a.m., walked
through the high school, marched around the school building and
gathered outside the school's front door. After about half an hour, a
delegation of seven students met with high school Principal David Daniels.

The new policy is "an evasion of civil liberties" and prejudicial
because only student athletes will be tested, said Joe Morgan, 17, a
junior. Morgan circulated a petition, which was signed by close to 50
students, last week opposing the policy.

Most athletes are against the policy, said Nick Hardy, 17, a junior.
But the board and school administrators are ignoring this negative
sentiment, Morgan said.

The 80 students who protested Tuesday represented about 20 percent of
the roughly 430 students in the high school.

Principal Daniels said he met with the student delegation for about an
hour, but he's not sure any common ground was reached. "I tried to
emphasize that the whole rationale for the policy was to make it
easier for students to avoid drugs and resist peer pressure," he said.

Students, on the other hand, worried about confidentiality and privacy
issues, he added. Daniels said he told the students that they can take
their concerns to the school district's head coaches council and the
school board.

About half the demonstrators on Tuesday went back to class after about
a half hour, while the other half left school grounds. Students who
cut multiple class periods will face disciplinary action, Daniels said.

A 1998 survey of 159 student athletes found 71.7 percent favored a
drug testing program for student athletes, and 84 percent agreed, or
strongly agreed, that drug or alcohol use among student athletes is a
problem in the SV district.

But some student protesters Tuesday said they felt the survey was
biased because it grouped drug and alcohol use together. "Policies
like this have been passed in schools with large drug problems. We
don't have a drug problem," said Anthony Pace, 16, a junior.

Other protesters said that if the district tests student athletes, it
should also test students in other extracurricular activities, and
school administrators. "It's unfair to single out athletes," Hardy
said.