Drug Testing Comes to Deerfield?

ANNOUNCEMENT

The Board of Education of the Township High School District #113 hereby invites all interested parties to air their views on the new drug testing policy (*See below) at a town hall meeting to take place between )October 8-10.

•  Each speaker will be limited to two minutes and is expected to have a firm grasp of the issues. 
•  Each speaker is required to demonstrate their understanding of the issues by using facts and argument from sources given (Links under the policy below) as well as prior Supreme Court precedent (the Acton and Earls cases).
• Each speaker should be prepared to answer questions from the school board.
• Each speaker will be assessed on their ability to convey their ideas, tone, speaking style, and their use of facts and details.
• OPTIONAL-If a speaker has a better policy or plan to accomplish the objectives set out below, he/she may present it. The sources listed by Gordies Call below may help.

Township High School District #113 Policy:

The objectives of the District’s drug policy are:

• To educate children and adults as to the serious physical, mental, and emotional harm caused by the use of drugs.
• To provide a deterrent to the use of drugs by students of District #113.
• To give students a valid reason to resist peer pressure to use drugs.
• To provide and maintain a safe, secure school environment, free of drug use and its effects.
• To eliminate the negative impact of drug use on the safety of students and others while traveling to and from school as well as throughout the school day and during school activities.

In order to meet the objectives of this program, all students and their parent/guardian are asked to sign a consent form agreeing to be part of the drug testing program for Township High School District #113.  During initial implementation, all students will take a mandatory drug test, and all students will be involved in random testing equivalent to a minimum of 10% of the group per month.  In subsequent years, incoming ninth graders will take a mandatory drug test, and all students, grades nine through twelve, will be involved in random testing at an equivalent to a minimum of 10% of the group per month.  Students entering the district after the first day or who had not been part of the initial mandatory testing will be given the test at the next random testing date.  Testing requires students to provide a urine sample, which is collected by an independent lab and screened for signs of tobacco and alcohol use, as well as for illegal substances.  If any of these substances are found as a result of the drug test, consequences will be imposed according to the policies listed on pages 18-21 of the student handbook.

Sources:
The Student Drug Testing Coalition #1
The Student Drug Testing Coalition #2
The ACLU

*Gordie's Call is an organization started by the family of a University of Colorado Student who died during an alcohol fueled hazing incident when he was a freshman.  We'll be looking at his story a bit more later in the year but some of the resources at the link may be interesting.