SCHOOLS CONTINUE DRUG TESTING

Clarksville High School will spend $7,000 this year on random drug
tests of students. The school is one of more than 100 in Arkansas
that administers such tests.

Don Johnston, Clarksville School District superintendent, hasn't seen
studies that suggest such tests are effective. In fact, two studies
by the University of Michigan suggest that random drug tests do
nothing to reduce student drug use.

Studies or no, Johnston says he believes the drug tests work in
Clarksville, and that parents, for the most part, support the program.

"I think it gives students another opportunity to say no," Johnston
says.

Bruce Plopper, a journalism professor at the University of Arkansas
at Little Rock, begs to differ. "There are just no studies out there
that say this works," he said. "But schools are spending money on it
anyway."

One drug test can cost anywhere from $14 to $30, and tests that check
for steroid use can cost as much as $100.

Plopper, a Conway resident, became a student of the issue after the
Conway School District adopted drug testing.

Plopper, who in a 2001 survey found that Arkansas's schools tested
for drugs at a rate 13 percent higher than the national average, sued
the Conway School District in 2002 and 2003 over the testing on
constitutional grounds. The case did not make it to court before the
district suspended its student drug-testing program. Plopper says, at
best, his efforts "may have been indirectly related to that
suspension."

Conway abandoned drug testing in 2007. Superintendent Greg Murry said
it's difficult to tell if dropping the policy has made a difference,
but he said the decision by the School Board was the correct one.
"The community had the opportunity to speak to the board about it,
and the board made what they felt to be the appropriate decision,"
Murry says. "I think the community's input did have something to do
with the deci-sion. I mean, that's what democracy's all about."

Arkansas school districts create their own policies on random drug
testing, so it's difficult to know exactly how many are testing, how
many plan to test or, like Conway, how many have abandoned testing.
The practice is opposed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and
one national survey found 83 percent of physicians disagreed with the
policy as well.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that random drug testing is
constitutional for student athletes and students participating in
extra-curricular activities.

Critics oppose random drug testing for a variety of reasons -- saying
it creates an atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion, violates privacy,
and fails to fully address the needs of students in trouble.

Cathy Koehler, National Education Association director for the state
of Arkansas, says there are better ways to respond to perceived drug
problems.

"Mandatory drug and alcohol testing of students, without probable
cause, is an unwarranted and unconstitutional invasion of privacy,"
Koehler says. "Why would you assume that, let's say, an entire high
school football team, is abusing drugs or other supplements? I think
that a lot of parents would be offended that you made the assumption
that their child was an abuser. And since we can't prove that every
one of them is abusing drugs or other supplements, then it's an
invasion of their privacy."

Cases involving drug testing are often based on the student's right
to privacy and the school's responsibility to provide a drug-free
environ-ment. Where that balance lies depends on state law. Some
state constitutions offer greater protections against searches and
seizures than does the U.S. Constitution. Richard Peltz, professor at
the UALR William H. Bowen School of Law says Arkansas is one of those
states, and school districts considering drug testing policies
should keep that in mind.

"We don't have a lawsuit to tell us what the Arkansas Supreme Court
might think about it. The U.S. Supreme Court found that drug
test-ing, as a condition of extra-curricular participation, was
permissible at random, without individual suspicion," Peltz says.
"Going beyond that, would be dangerous for a school's policy."

Legal challenges to drug testing policies are common, and can present
problems to small schools forced to fight cases in court.

Holly Dickson, staff attorney with ACLU Arkansas, says that over the
last couple of years her office has received several complaints
related to student drug testing, some regarding the policy itself,
some concerning practice.

"We've had questions about what parents can do to have a more
sensible drug policy at their child's school," Dickson says. "And
basically the answer is to take the scientific research and share it
with their school board and ask them to re-evaluate what they're doing."

The Arkansas School Board Association (ASBA) does not offer clients a
model drug policy, as it does with other issues. Kristen Gould, the
staff attorney for ASBA, says that a good policy should be community
based.

"If schools do have a student drug policy, it should be done
reflectively rather than reflexively," Gould says. "It's a policy
that you need to think through carefully and one that you probably
need to do a lot of ground-work with your community on in order to
build support."