FLIN FLON TRUSTEES CONSIDER DRUG TESTS

Flin Flon school trustees could decide tonight whether to launch
Manitoba's first in-school alcohol and drug testing for students.

Whether the testing is legal, how accurate the tests are, how great a
need there is for testing, and who'll conduct and analyse the tests
- -- are issues that are still uncertain, Flin Flon school board chair
Trish Sattelberger acknowledged Monday.

"We haven't implemented any program -- it's in the draft stage,"
Sattelberger said. "It's hard to say when it could be implemented. It
would be a division-wide thing, it wouldn't just necessarily be the
high school."

Flin Flon has 1,092 students in four schools, including 428 in high
school grades.

Sattelberger said that drug and alcohol problems are no better or
worse in Flin Flon than anywhere else in Manitoba, but trustees want
to deter students from substance abuse.

She said an Ontario company has offered the division testing
equipment used in workplaces.

"What they're looking for for alcohol testing would be a form of
breathalyzer ...for drug testing, (it) would be for saliva, a litmus test."

Sattelberger said that staff is looking into what happened six years
ago in Winkler, where Garden Valley School Division backed off
introducing random urine tests for high school student-athletes after
the ombudsman told the division it would be illegal.

Garden Valley Collegiate planned to choose student-athletes randomly
within the school and send them to a nearby clinic for urine tests.
The clinic would send the samples to a lab for analysis.

"The proposed collection of personal health information would not be
lawful, or necessary, or effective," the provincial ombudsman's
office emphasized in the lengthy report.