Pubdate: Fri, 28 Jun 2002
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2002 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Ellen Barry and Sandy Coleman

IN MASSACHUSETTS, EDUCATORS OFTEN SHY AWAY FROM TESTING

Many principals wish to protect students' privacy

For eight years, Joyce Kephart watched her two daughters leave the house 
for Millbury High School with an unnerving thought: She no longer knew what 
was going on in their lives.

It would have been an enormous relief, she said yesterday, if the school 
had occasionally tested her daughters for drug use. "If it wasn't for the 
school system informing me of things," Kephart said, "I would never have 
known."

But Charlene Chinn, an 11th-grader at Belmont High, bridles at the very 
thought of being tested by an administrator. "That's an invasion of 
privacy," she said. Chinn is probably in luck.

Although the US Supreme Court yesterday broadened administrators' rights to 
test teens for drug use, Massachusetts administrators have traditionally 
shied away from the practice out of concern for students' civil liberties. 
School officials interviewed yesterday said they could not recall any 
instance of random drug testing in Massachusetts high schools - ever.

Principals said they had no intention of using the new right, and legal 
activists said they would go to battle against any school district that 
proposed it.

"I suspect if someone tries this, they would be immediately sued, and I 
would be happy to do it myself," said Sarah Wunsch, a lawyer with the 
Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's a really 
sad day when kids get treated this way."

With today's ruling, schools around the country have the right to demand 
urine or hair samples from any student participating in extracurricular 
activities, even without evidence that they are using drugs.

Schools have had the right to demand that student athletes submit to drug 
tests, but only about 5 percent of schools nationwide have exercised that 
right, according to Lloyd Johnston, a researcher at the University of 
Michigan's Institute for Social Research.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court expanded the drug-testing right to include the 
drama club, the chess club, the glee club, and every other extracurricular 
activity, since those students compromise their right to privacy by 
voluntarily representing the school, according to the decision.

The lawsuit had been brought by Lindsay Earls, a former Tecumseh, Okla., 
honor student who, as a condition of playing in the marching band, was led 
to a restroom and forced to urinate into a plastic vial while three faculty 
members stood outside the stall listening for "the normal noise of 
urination," according to court documents.

Although the court did not address the larger question of whether schools 
could test every student, several justices expressed an interest in 
expanding the right still further.

But Massachusetts school administrators interviewed said they could not 
imagine using such a right.

"Teachers do a lot of things, but I don't think they should be doing that," 
said Robert Weintraub, principal of Brookline High School, which refers 
students to a testing agency if they have already violated a drug or 
alcohol policy. "If you're snooping around on a kid like that, I think that 
compromises the relationship."

Linda Nathan, principal of the Boston Arts Academy, agreed. "I've never 
done a random search, and I can't imagine living in an environment where 
that would happen," she said. In the past, Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial 
Court has guarded citizens from random testing.

In 1991, when the Boston Police Department initiated random drug testing, 
the SJC ruled that the "general sense that there is a drug problem" did not 
justify random testing of police officers, Wunsch said. "The US Supreme 
Court appears willing to dispense with constitutional rights whenever 
someone trots out some justification," she said. "This language suggests 
that our state would not countenance such easy disregard for constitutional 
rights."

For 18-year-old Jennifer Kephart, who graduated from Millbury High last 
year, the compromise of privacy is an acceptable cost for becoming a 
community role model. "It's becoming a big problem where the kids who are 
being looked up to are overdosing on drugs or are getting into car 
accidents because of alcohol," said Kephart.

But Matt Auger, 18, who was active in band and drama club at Brockton High, 
said testing could turn into a kind of profiling. "There will be situations 
where some students will be picked out over other students," he said. "I 
don't know how they could do it fairly."
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