W-JCC SCHOOL DRUG-TESTING PLAN DRAWS QUESTIONS

Parents And Officials Debate The Right To Privacy Versus The
Privileges Of Driving Cars And Playing Sports

WILLIAMSBURG -- After several parents told the School Board that a
random drug policy would invade the privacy of their children, high
school officials told the board the students are already being
assaulted by widespread drug and alcohol use.

"Kids stay home because they don't want to face it," said Jamestown
Athletic Director Tom Dolan.

"We have students who basically shut themselves in their homes on
weekends to avoid this. That's how prevalent it is."

Almost 50 people, about a dozen of them students, attended a public
hearing on a drug-testing policy proposed for Williamsburg-James City
County Schools. Superintendent Gary Mathews has asked that high
schools randomly drug test all students in extracurricular activities
or using a permit to park their cars on campus. That plan would reach
about 1,000 students at each W-JCC high school - about two-thirds of
the student body.

David Lee, a lawyer and coach of Jamestown's mock trial team, said
that testing pool would be too broad to meet restrictions the U.S.
Supreme Court has set on testing high school students for drugs.

Parent Curt Gaul agreed: "Drug testing is a shotgun approach to
address the minority of students who are taking drugs."

Jamestown Principal Chuck Wagner told the School Board that 17
students at his school have been cited for possession or use of drugs
or alcohol this school year - four within the past two weeks.

"The problem is much larger than we at the schools know or that
parents are willing to acknowledge," Wagner said. "Whether or not
that's true, I don't know, but that's what we're being told: that
students can't get away from it."

He and Lafayette High School Principal David Tremaine agreed there
are many more cases that don't reach a formal finding or expulsion
but involve parents expressing concerns.

Wagner said, "The parents' response has been not, 'Oh, I knew about
this, and it was only a matter of time,' but it was, 'Oh, I had no idea.' "

Jamestown High School senior Christine Bottles spent the past year on
a committee studying the drug policy. She told the School Board she
is in favor of testing: "This will be done as a deterrent, not as a
punishment. It will give (students) a reason to say no."

But student Zoe Welch said other students are worried that taking
allergy medications or eating poppy-seed bagels could give students a
false positive on a drug test. "I believe drug testing is
humiliating, costly and ineffective," she said.

Most of the speakers at the public hearing were against the proposal.
Kathy Hornsby has two sons in eighth grade at Berkeley Middle School
and said, "I don't think the schools have any business demanding
urine specimens of students who are not suspected of drug usage."

Dane Jablonsky has two daughters at Lafayette High School, and he
asked the School Board, "Will we teach them about hypocrisy? Nicotine
will kill more of the class of 2006 - the class of my daughter - than
marijuana."

He suggested the district allow parents to opt out of any student
drug-testing program and suggested the creation of an endowment that
would pay for a student's first year of college if the student stays
clean for three years in high school.

Carolee Bush spent 34 years as a high school teacher. She told the
board, "When we break the Fourth Amendment, which protects against
search and seizure without probable cause, how can we expect our
students to understand the Bill of Rights?"

Lafayette Athletic Director Dan Barner said he would have agreed with
the policy opponents three years ago, but he has seen a recent and
rapid change in the attitude of many students toward drug use. He
noted that just last week, he learned his own grandchild was taking a
drink that promised quick energy for sports.

"The big change is that many of them think it's OK. They say they
think it's the same thing as Mom and Dad going down to the corner to
Starbucks," Barner told the School Board.

School Board member Ron Vaught said the random policy is not too
broad, and he picked up on the testing opponents' use of the right to
privacy argument.

"Parking on the student lot, driving a car to school - as I've told
my daughter - is a privilege, not a right. Therefore, with those
privileges come responsibilities," he said.