DUNELAND WILL TEST FOR DRUGS

CHESTERTON: New "Reasonable Suspicion" Policy To Include All Students

CHESTERTON -- Any Duneland Schools student exhibiting signs of drug use
next year may be asked to undergo drug testing.

The Duneland School board on Monday unanimously accepted the recommendation
of a committee chaired by Chesterton High School Principal Jim Goetz to
institute across-the-board testing based on "reasonable suspicion."

The new policy has significant differences with Duneland's previous testing
program. It will not be the random testing that targeted only students in
co- and extra-curricular activities during the 1999-2000 school year. Under
the new policy, all students are subject to testing, but only if they have
given staff reason to suspect the use of drugs.

Getting help for kids that need it and giving the majority of kids another
reason to reject drug use are the two pillars of the policy, Goetz said,

"This is not a program to get kids in trouble, it's a program to get them
help," Goetz said. If the plan gives kids one more way to say no, then
"we've been successful," he said.

School board President Michael Griffin was adamantly unapologetic about the
policy.

"At some point we need to step out and reclaim our kids," he said. "Who
would not do anything they possibly could to save their kids?"

William Barkow, a parent who has adamantly opposed random -- or what he has
called "suspicion-less" -- testing at earlier drug forums, applauded the
board's decision and said it was a courageous move.

But parent Gene Weibl worried that testing could not be kept confidential
and might actually set kids on a bad path.

"Reasonable suspicion," Goetz said, would be based on the staff's
professional judgement. Triggering suspicion, he said, would be physical
appearance, odor, possession of paraphernalia or drugs, information from
teachers, parents or students or violation of the high school closed campus
policy.

Saliva samples will be tested for a variety of drugs, including marijuana,
cocaine, heroin, alcohol and tobacco.

Refusal to take a test would be taken as an admittance of guilt, Goetz said.

Positive results will immediately be retested to eliminate false positives.
If the positive is confirmed, students face suspension and possible
expulsion, but will be enrolled in the school's Positive Life counseling
program. Students in extra-curricular activities will be ineligible for 20
percent of their remaining competitions, 40 percent if they refuse counseling.

The test will cost about $20, which is about $15 less than the urine
testing of four years ago.

The earlier testing was suspended four years ago because of uncertainties
over its constitutionality. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 affirmed the
legality of random testing. At that time Duneland did not reinstate a
testing program because of money constraints in the wake of the Bethlehem
Steel bankruptcy.