COURT STRIKES DOWN RANDOM TEACHER DRUG TESTING

RALEIGH - Graham County Schools violated employees' constitutional
rights by deciding to subject them to random tests for drugs and
alcohol, the state Court of Appeals ruled this morning.

Reversing Superior Court Judge James U. Downs' order in favor of the
school board, the three-judge panel said the board violated the state
constitution's prohibitions on unreasonable searches.

"Constitutional rights are not lightly cast aside," Judge Linda Stephens wrote.

Said Stephens: "... we should recall that the cherished liberties
enjoyed in our brief historical moment have been inherited by this
generation only because they have been nurtured and protected by
earlier generations of Americans so driven in their pursuit of
liberty that life itself was not too great a cost to purchase liberty
for themselves and their posterity."

The school board could appeal to the state Supreme Court. The board
is meeting this morning and officials could not immediately be reached.

The school board approved random testing for virtually all employees
in 2006, saying it would be unsafe for a teacher using drugs to watch
over students. The policy has been on hold ever since.

Judges said the board didn't show evidence of a drug problem among
school employees that would justify changing the former policy, which
mandated drug testing upon hiring and upon suspicion.

They said school officials acknowledged no child had been harmed by
educators under the influence and few positive tests had turned up
under the old policy.

Lawyers for the board argued that educators have the kind of
safety-sensitive jobs that can be subject to random testing, like,
for example, an airport maintenance mechanic whom the North Carolina
courts ruled could be randomly tested.

Stephens, though, wrote that "there is absolutely no evidence in the
record which in any way equates the safety concerns inherent in the
driving of a motor vehicle on the apron of an airport's flight area
with the safety concerns inherent in the job duties of any Board employee."

Judge James Wynn and Chief Judge John C. Martin joined Stephens in her opinion.

Former school board chairman Mitch Colvard, the policy's main backer,
hopes the board will appeal.

Plenty of employees of private businesses face random tests, he said.

"It's a sad day when you have to get tested to work at a fast food
restaurant," Colvard said, "... but you can go to school and
influence our children, our future, and not be tested."