PRINCIPAL DISAPPOINTED DRUG TESTS KILLED

Was Eager To See Court Challenge On Privacy Issue

THE principal of Winkler's Garden Valley Collegiate says he's disappointed
the school didn't get a chance to go to court to find out if random drug
testing of students would stand up to a Charter of Rights and Freedoms
challenge.

"I wish it would have went to the courts to seek a challenge," Principal
Dan Giesbrecht said yesterday. "I'm pretty strong and adamant on this --
it's frustrating."

Garden Valley trustees abandoned the plan last week after the provincial
ombudsman concluded that the division had not justified intruding on
students' right to privacy.

"I don't see the political will to take it any further," Giesbrecht said.
He pointed out that the ombudsman's report was just a recommendation, and
was not binding.

"There's a price we're paying as a society" for drugs, Giesbrecht said. "It
was just another way of dealing with it. We're not giving up."

The high school would have randomly picked varsity athletes and sent them
to a nearby clinic for drug testing. Giesbrecht said that even discussing
the proposal was enough to have some students come forward and say that
they had drug problems, and ask for and receive counselling and treatment.

Parents were strongly in favour, said Giesbrecht, who offers parents drug
kits at cost so they can check their children at home.

"They're almost like a litmus test. You dip it into the urine, and away you
go," he said.

"It was always meant as rehabilitation. It was always meant as support; it
was not meant as policing," Giesbrecht said.

Giesbrecht said that before the proposal went to school trustees, he had
heavily researched drug-testing issues, methods, and accuracy, and spoke to
several companies, including Accutest Occupational Health Services of
Winnipeg. The company conducts drug testing for the transportation industry.

He predicted that Garden Valley would have opted for saliva testing, which
he said is less intrusive than urine or blood tests, or for taking hair
samples for analysis. "The labs are so accurate now," he said. "Had it gone
forward, there would have been a tendering process" that could have seen
Accutest handle the analysis of the Winkler school's drug testing.

Accutest operations manager Colleen Robinson said that her firm would have
offered its services to school divisions throughout Manitoba had Garden
Valley's drug testing gone ahead.

Robinson was unhappy that Keith Thomas, risk manager for the Manitoba
Association of School Trustees, said last week that randomly testing
students is "dead in the water." Thomas doubted any school division would
risk the legal troubles it would likely face for potentially violating
students' human rights through random testing.

"I don't think (Thomas) recognizes the value of drug testing," she said.

A spokesman for Education Minister Ron Lemieux said yesterday the minister
will not decide whether to comment until he reads the ombudsman's report.
An aide to Lemieux said The Winnipeg Free Press is "pushing" student drug
testing, even though the issue has been settled.