MADISON SCHOOL DISTRICT ADOPTS TOUGHER TRAINING RULES POLICY

Students in the Madison Central School District who violate a revised
alcohol, tobacco and other drugs policy could be barred from participating
in co-curricular activities for a year.

Monday night, school board members voted 8-1 to pass a tougher general
training rules policy (policy JFCH). The policy was brought up for review
in an effort to close loopholes, increase parental involvement and toughen
the consequences students could face for violating the district's drug policy.

School board member Craig Walker cast the lone dissenting vote.

The policy goes into effect immediately.

"I think we need to make some kind of a statement to the student body that
this kind of behavior is not going to be tolerated anymore because it's
affecting our kids and it will affect their future," said school board
member Rod Goeman.

According to the revised policy, students adjudicated, convicted, the
subject of a suspended imposition of sentence or self-reporting the
consumption, possession, distribution or ingestion of controlled substances
or marijuana or possession or distribution of drug paraphernalia will be
restricted from participation in extracurricular activities sanctioned by
the South Dakota High School Activities Association for one year. National
Honor Society students will be dismissed from the organization.

Any student adjudicated, convicted, the subject of a suspended imposition
of sentence or self-reporting the consumption, possession, distribution or
ingestion of alcohol, other substances for the purpose of becoming
intoxicated or tobacco will be subjected to certain disciplinary consequences.

Those consequences include a ban from participation in 1/8 of the total
regularly scheduled events for the first offense and a ban for one calendar
year for a second or subsequent offense.

One or both parents will also have to meet with the coach and activities
director before a student is reinstated. Violations will accumulate
beginning with a student's freshman year.

Monday night's decision isn't the first time the board has revised the
district's training rules policy. The policy has now been revised six times
in nine years -- each time in an effort to close a loophole.

The latest effort stems from an incident in December in which a Madison
High School student-athlete was allowed to play on one of the school's
teams because of a loophole.

In that case, the student was convicted in Clay County for a misdemeanor
count of ingesting a substance and for reckless driving. Because both state
statute and the school's policy didn't specifically address ingestion at
that time, the student was reinstated onto the team.

The new wording is expected to close some of those loopholes to make the
policy tougher, Superintendent John Sweet told board members. But, he said,
"every time a new instance occurs, somebody finds a new loophole."

Goeman, who pushed for a tougher training rules policy after the December
incident, said that the previous policy wasn't fair to students who didn't
violate it.

"I think we have to weigh the kids that are not breaking the rules with the
kids that make the decision to violate the rules," he said.