DRUG POLICY WILL GO TO TRIAL

Wahkiakum School District's drug testing policy is going to get it's day in
court, and the ultimate decision may decide how aggressively schools
statewide can test for drugs.

The state Supreme Court last week declined to hear an American Civil
Liberties Union request to bar the district from conducting random,
suspicionless searches of student athletes.

The high court's action means that a trial about the drug testing policy
will take place in Wahkiakum County Superior Court, perhaps before the end
of the school year, attorneys say.

School officials and Wahkiakum County Prosecuting Attorney Fred Johnson,
acting as the school district's lawyer , view the latest development as a
victory. The district will get a chance to argue at trial that the policy
is legitimate way to curb drug use and does not violate privacy protected
by the U.S. or Washington constitutions.

The ACLU had unsuccessfully asked the courts for an injunction against
testing, hoping for a speedy decision that avoided a trial.

School officials instituted the testing program in 1999. A group of parents
supported by the Washington ACLU challenged the policy, saying it is
unconstitutional. The district is not conducting tests this year, pending
the outcome of the case.

As the case heads to court, lawyers say the outcome may hinge on how
serious a drug problem has to be before schools can conduct random,
suspicionless searches.

Johnson said he expects the ACLU "that there should be an epidemic, that
the only time you should have random, suspicionless searches is if people
are dying in the highways."

If random drug testing is unconstitutional on its face, Johnson argues,
then routine searches of airline travelers also is illegal

Jeffrey Fisher, a Seattle attorney representing the ACLU, said, "Our
position is that if drugs are a problem in Wahkiakum schools there are
better ways to address it than this.

"Just showing that drug and alcohol are abused does not mean (random,
suspicionless searches) are OK. There are less drastic measures. Give more
choices to students and parents and don't jam it down the throats of people
who don't want to be treated as presumed guilty."

Wahkiakum School Superintendent Bob Garrett said that student surveys shown
that drug and alcohol use is high among students. Few samples collected in
the first year came up dirty, which Garrett interpreted as showing the
policy was curbing use.

Fisher and Johnson agreed that the U.S. Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote in an
Oklahoma case, probably gave school districts wide latitude to test
students for drugs. In the so-called Earls case, the high court said it was
OK to require mandatory testing of all students participating in
extracurricular activities.

However, the Washington Constitution has often been interpreted as more
protective of individual rights, Johnson and Fisher said. In a 1996 case
involving the Renton School District, the court ruled that searching
students luggage before a school trip violates both the state and U.S.
constitutions.

The Wahkiakum drug testing case probably will eventually make its way back
to the state supreme court, and its decision likely will be
precedent-setting, Fisher said.

"There has not been a school drug testing decision in Washington."