RANDOM DRUG TESTING OF TEACHERS IS WRONG

I am a squeaky-clean seventh-grade math teacher at Waiakea
Intermediate School in Hilo. I did not even smoke pot during the
hippie '60s. I do not smoke or drink. I care about my students.

The teacher random drug testing is wrong on so many levels:
unconstitutional (Fourth Amendment search and seizures); expensive (I
don't want any money taken from my school's budget for a drug testing
program); subject to false positives (affecting specific teachers
egregiously); lack of reason to do it (any evidence that teachers
using drugs have harmed students?).

And of course, there is the "political dirty trick" of holding the
teachers' salary raise hostage in order to implement it.

It seems almost impossible that Gov. Linda Lingle, who has been so
supportive of the schools, is actually committed to this. Say it isn't
so, Linda!

Tanya Lee,

Pahoa, Hawai'i