THE CONANT EXPERIMENT SHOWS THAT MORE DRUG TESTS ARE UNLIKELY

JAFFREY -- A U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week gave public schools wider
latitude to test some students for drugs.

Granite State schools will likely proceed with caution on such tests,
fearful of a high-profile ruckus similar to the one at Conant High School in
Jaffrey during the mid-1990s.

Conant High officials began randomly testing athletes for some drugs
starting in the spring of 1996. By the end of the following school year, in
the face of voter opposition, the policy had been scrapped and the
Jaffrey-Rindge Cooperative School District superintendent, who had supported
the testing, had submitted his resignation.

Today, the key players on both sides of the Conant debate haven't wavered a
bit on their views about drug testing, unswayed by the passage of time, or
the high court.

"I think we were right then, and we're still right," said Keith P. Luscombe
of Jaffrey, a testing proponent who was school board chairman during the
1996-97 school year.

He ran up against people such as Scott C. Douglas, who was then a Rindge
selectman.

"Having the school give drug tests is like having mailmen give speeding
tickets," Douglas said this week.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that schools' need to protect students' health
outweighs concerns about privacy.

The ruling applies to participants in all extracurricular activities, from
the band and drama club to the football team, expanding the scope of a 1995
ruling by the court that allowed drug testing only for student-athletes.

Claire Ebel, executive director of the N.H. Civil Liberties Union, doesn't
expect many schools to adopt drug testing in the wake of last week's ruling
- -- something she chalks up to Yankee values and the recent memory of
Conant's high-profile spat.

"I think we have a kind of Yankee common sense approach to problems," Ebel
said. "There is a decided streak of protection for individual rights and
privacy in New Hampshire that, regrettably, does not exist in other places."

Jaffrey-Rindge school board member Daniel Whitney of Rindge voted for the
testing in 1996 and voted to abolish it in 1997. Like Ebel, he believes that
such a program cannot exist without a critical mass of public support.

"If we do not have community support, we shouldn't have the policy," he
said.

One Family's Fight

Conant High's drug testing in the 1990s was spurred by some parents' and
coaches' concern about student drug use, and the perception that the 1995
court ruling had answered any civil liberties questions.

Athletic Director James Adams, who still holds that post, crafted a policy
based on testing programs at other public schools, primarily those in the
Midwest. There did not appear to be any other testing programs in New
Hampshire then -- or since. The Jaffrey-Rindge School Board approved the
testing starting for spring sports in 1996. The test results were
confidential. Students who tested positive were given counseling. Repeat
offenders were to be removed from sports.

Each Conant athlete was assigned a number, and 5 percent of the numbers were
randomly drawn by school officials each month. If your number was drawn, you
came down to the school nurse's office, urinated in a cup and gave the cup
to hired technicians from Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, who
then tested for certain drugs. Alcohol was not one of the drugs that showed
up on the tests.

"I think the people on our side of the issue took the stance that if you
weren't doin' drugs you had nothing to hide and it shouldn't be a big deal,"
Adams said this week. "And I still feel that way."

But some students and their parents thought the testing was a big deal -- a
gross violation of their privacy, often with no suspicion of guilt.

George and Marilynn Vagalebre of Rindge were incensed when they heard from
their daughter, an honor roll student who was also an athlete, about the
testing. The couple started attending school board meetings to voice their
disgust.

At first, the Vagalebres were the lone public voices against the policy. But
starting in the fall of 1996, other parents began showing up at school board
meetings, and each meeting became an impromptu debate about the testing,
distracting from other school business.

The objections ranged from civil liberties concerns to a feeling that the
testing was useless because it couldn't detect the most-abused drug of all:
alcohol.

"It took a lot out of us," said George Vagalebre this week. "We aren't even
sure we want to say anything (about the Supreme Court ruling). The testing
isn't here anymore and that's what's important."

The parents seemed more concerned about the testing than most of the
athletes being tested.

Craig Griffin, who graduated from Conant in 1998, said he was never
concerned about the testing.

"It was probably a huge deal when it started but it kind of wore off," said
the former multi-sport star.

Testing The Board

Things took a comical turn in September 1996 when Marilynn Vagalebre
challenged the board members to get tested for drugs, too -- and the board
accepted the challenge, though members said the results would stay
confidential.

One randomly selected board member got tested each month for four months.
Luscombe's name was drawn three of the four times.

"It was just a little inconvenient," he recalls. "I just had to drive into
town to get tested. I didn't think it was humiliating."

For the record, Luscombe's tests came up negative.

Also, tests on all 55 athletes who had been tested through December 1996
came up negative.

At the height of the brouhaha, Superintendent Julius J. D'Agostino announced
that he would step down after three years on the job. It was widely
suspected, though never proven, that his move was related to the handling of
the testing issue.

The drug debate came to a head at the 1997 school-district meeting. Douglas
gathered a petition calling for a nonbinding no-confidence vote on the
testing policy.

Testing opponents won, 194-134. The following week, the school board took
the advice of voters and abolished the policy.

Douglas said the winning majority included people who philosophically
opposed the testing and people who were neutral on the testing, but thought
Conant's program was poorly constructed.

"The school system went ahead and did this with out talking much about it.
It was poorly done." he said. "Where was the justification for this?"

Whitney said the drug testing ended because of an honest disagreement, not
because of poor implementation or poor public relations.

"If you believe that the base idea is a violation of your rights, it doesn't
matter if you call it a Yugo, a Ford or a Chevy, it's a violation of your
rights," he said.